


Lifetime Achievement

by Mad_Lori



Series: Performance in a Leading Role [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Coming Out, Family Drama, Fluff, Hollywood, Homophobia, M/M, Meta, Real Person Cameos, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:19:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Lori/pseuds/Mad_Lori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson has just won an Oscar and gotten engaged in the same day.  Now what? (Sequel to "Performance in a Leading Role")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to roane72 and mazarin221b for their excellent beta assistance.

_27 February, 2012_

_the day after the Academy Awards_

* * *

John Watson would have appreciated a peaceful post-Oscar morning.  Eat breakfast in quiet contentment, have a nice cuppa, maybe fondle his statuette a bit and try out different display locations.  Have a cozy lie-in with his snuggly bed partner and hunt up as many media mentions of himself that included the phrase “Oscar winner” as he could find.  Relax on the couch, read the Oscar write-ups online, skim some of the dozens of scripts that would surely appear on his doorstep at any moment, and shag his brand-new fiancé like it was going out of style.

At least he was getting the breakfast and cuppa.

“He’s had two hours’ sleep.  He can’t go on Leno in this condition,” Sherlock was yelling, stabbing a finger at Irene.  

Irene was talking into two phones at once, one of her more impressive skills.  “He signed a contract, he doesn’t have a choice.  Yes, not before five, Sheila.  I asked you to have the paperwork ready by tomorrow!  No, Sheila, not you.” She hung up both phones and turned her full attention to the six feet of irate actor standing before her.  “The photoshoot is not optional. They’re probably going to want you to be in it, too, so go upstairs and shave.”

“Out of the question. John needs to get some rest, not pose for staged photographs.”

“I’m okay,” John said, sipping his tea.  Sally took away his empty plate and handed him more toast.  “I’m on a bit of an adrenaline high right now.”

“That won’t do for long. You’ll crash, and you know how you get.”

“How do I _get?_ ”

“Grumpy!”

“You make me sound like a toddler.  I’ll have time for a kip before the photographer arrives, won’t I?”

“No more than a few hours.”

“That’ll tide me over.  Stop being such a mother hen.”

Sherlock squared his shoulders, his chin rising in affront.  “I am no such thing.  I’m just looking after my fiancé.”

“Yes.  Very much in the way of a mother hen.”

“Speaking of fiancés,” Irene interjected,  “I need you two to look over the press release about your engagement before it goes out.”

John shifted in his chair, his stomach doing a little flip. “Can’t we put that off a few days?  I’d rather tell my parents face to face.”  

“That’s fine.  A delay might actually benefit us.  If we announce now, it gets rolled in with your Oscar win, but if we wait until the press from that dies down and then announce, we get another boost. But let’s not wait too long.”

“Why must we issue a press release at all?” Sherlock said, his expression still thunderous.  “We haven’t even set a date.  There isn’t much to announce save for the fact of it.”

“There is still damage control to be done here.  John’s speech last night did a lot of good, but happy news like a wedding will do even more.”

“Except for those people who think same-sex marriage is an _abomination,_ ” John muttered.   _Like my own parents, for example._

“We were never going to win with those people, so there’s no reason to try. We should take advantage of good press while we have it.”  

Harry came in and held out her phone.  “John, Charlie’s on the phone for you.”

John grinned, took the phone, and walked off toward the living room for a little privacy.  “Charlie?”

“Johnny!  My Best Actor baby brother! Fucking hell!  Congratulations!”

John laughed.  “God, thanks for calling.  I meant to thank my family in my speech, I hope no one’s all pissed off at me.”

“Nah, I don’t know how you remembered any names at all up there.”

“So how’d the overnight Oscar party go?”

“Brilliant! Isabelle set it up to stream, or whatever you call it, from her computer to the telly.”

“I still can’t believe you all got up at Arsehole O’Clock to watch the Oscars _live_.”

“Of course we did!  Our brother was up for the biggest award of his career!  Anyway, it was fun, and we all took leave from work today so we could sleep.”

John nodded.  “It’s just that...with Mum and Dad being...”  He cleared his throat.  “It means a lot to me that you all are so supportive.”

Charlie was quiet for a moment.  “You’re my brother, Johnny.  I love you and I’m proud of you, always.”

“That’s bloody good to hear,” John said, over the lump in his throat.

“And, uh...Liam got up to watch, too.  Deb wasn’t going to let him, but he was very insistent.  Said he wanted to watch Uncle John.”

“He said that?  He’s...feeling better about things?”

“Well, I don’t know about that.  He’s still a bit confused. Him and me had a couple chats about it.  He asked if it meant that he might like boys too, when he grew up.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah.  I told him it didn’t mean that at all, that he’d like whoever he liked, and he’d probably like girls, but if he liked boys that was okay too.”  Charlie chuckled.  “He said he likes girls.  A lot, in his words.”

“Next time I’m in town, I need to make sure to spend some time with him, just us.”

“He’d like that.  Anyway, you sure pulled that Oscar outta your arse, didn’t you?”

“I still can’t quite believe it.”

“You deserved it.  When me and Deb saw the film, I turned to her and I said, ‘God, how’d we never know Johnny was that bloody good?’  You never made a film that let you show it off, I guess.”

“Ta, very much.” John paused.  “Have you talked to Mum and Dad?”

“I’m, uh…at their place right now.  They didn’t stay up, but I showed it to them on my laptop. Mum’s busy clipping every single article and photograph of you out of the papers, as usual.  Started a whole new scrapbook just for the Oscars.  But, uh...she...well, shit.”

“What?”

“She’s cutting Sherlock out of all the photos,” Charlie said.  “When you won and he kissed you, Dad stood up and walked out.  He didn’t hear the rest.  Mum saw the whole thing, though.”

John nodded.   _It’s no worse than you expected_.  “What did she...I mean...”

“Well, she’s here.  Do you want to talk to her?”

“Um...all right, then.  Put her on.”  John sat down on the window seat, forcing himself to breathe evenly.  He heard Charlie speaking in the background, the phone changing hands, and then his mother’s voice.

“John?”  She sounded hesitant.  He wondered how much _she_ really wanted to talk to _him_.

“Hello, Mum.  How are you today?”

“Oh, I get by,” she said.  “I’m so happy you won, John.”

“Thanks.  I’m still processing it.”

“Everyone said the film was quite good.  Charlie said so, too.” Her careful, neutral tone spoke volumes.

John bit his lip.  “I take it you never did see it, then.”

“I...I just can’t.”

“You’ve seen everything I’ve ever done except this film, the one I’m the most proud of in my entire career?”

“Why can’t you just make more of those nice, romantic films?” she said, in a rush, as if she’d been holding that in for months.  “Everyone likes those.”

“Everyone but me.  Those nice, romantic films were killing my career.  And a lot of people liked this film, too.”

“I barely knew how to tell my friends about it.”

John grit his teeth and changed the subject. “Charlie said you’ve started a new scrapbook.”

“I may need two, what with all this publicity,” she said.  “It’s just so much cutting and pasting.”  

 _Yes, Mother, I’m so sorry that my success has made your scrapbooking more difficult._  “You don’t have to do all that.”

“Oh, no, I want to.”

“Charlie said you’re doing some editing to my photographs.”

She was quiet for a moment.  “I just want photos of my son.  That’s all.”

“It never bothered you before.  Your scrapbooks are full of photos of me with other people.”

“It’s different.  Now I can’t seem to find a photograph of you without – _that man_.”  She said the last two words as if naming a particularly repulsive species of spider she’d found scuttling around her kitchen.

“He has a name, Mum.  And you can cut him out of the photos, but you can’t cut him out of my life.”

There was a long beat of silence.  “He kissed you,” she finally said, barely above a whisper, as if unseen listeners might hear her say it out loud and be shocked.  “Everyone _saw_ it.”

“I know they saw.  I’m _glad_ they saw.  I want them to see.”

“Oh, John,” she said, as if he were beyond hope.  “I don’t know how you can just throw your whole life away on – this.”

John sagged.   _This_.  One word for everything in his life.  One dismissive, belittling syllable for his relationship with Sherlock, his new career path, his emotional fulfillment, and now his marriage.  “I’m not throwing anything away.  Because of him, I _have_ a life now.  The life I want, the career I want.  He has given me everything, Mum.  He _is_ everything.”

“Well, you know best, you always do.  I don’t know anything.”

“Mother…” John clamped down on his exasperation.  “Please, spare me the martyr act.”

“You’ll do as you like, I suppose.”

He sighed.  This was going nowhere.  “Put Charlie back on.”

She did so, without another word.  “Blimey,” Charlie muttered, when he came back on the line.

“I think I’ve got frostbite over here.”

“If it’s any consolation, she gives all of us that old ‘I’m just your mother, I don’t know anything’ routine.  You should have heard her when we let Isabelle get a tattoo when she turned sixteen.”

John bit back hard on a comment regarding how he felt about a parallel being drawn between his niece’s tattoo and his marriage.  He knew what Charlie meant.  “Look, there’s something I should tell you, but I think it’s best if you kept it to yourself for now.”

“All right, then.”

“Sherlock asked me to marry him.”

“Did he get down on one knee?”

John chuckled.  “No, he didn’t.  He did give me a pair of cufflinks as an engagement present, though.  Engraved with the date that we met, if you can believe that.”

“And?  You said yes, right?”

“Yes, of course I did.  I love him.”

Charlie hesitated.  “I don’t pretend to get it, John.  I couldn’t imagine being with a bloke – like that.  But it’s not for me to get it, is it?  We all waited for you to meet somebody and fall in love.  No offense, but we were starting to give up hope.”

“Me too,” John said, smiling.  “I never expected this either, you know.”  He sighed.  “I just wish it didn’t mean that Mum and Dad – well, I can’t control that.”

“You going to tell them?”

“Not over the phone.  I’ll come over and tell them, probably in the next few days.  I’ll let you know when."

“All right.  I’ll just keep it under my hat for now.  Mind if I tell Deb?”

“Nobody else, all right?  I’ll tell the others when I get there. Thanks for calling, Charlie.”

“Of course.  I’m so damn proud of you, little brother,” Charlie said, his voice going thick.

John smiled.  “Thanks.  I’ll see you soon.”  He hung up and tossed the phone aside, then rose and went across to the other window, hoping its view of the hills and woods behind the house would help clear his mind.  

He sensed Sherlock in the doorway within seconds, as he’d known he would.  He’d likely been lurking in the hall, waiting for John to hang up.  “You can come in now,” he said.

“All right?” Sherlock said, joining him at the window.

John sighed.  “I’ve got to go over there.  I don’t want to wait to tell them.”

“They’re going to want to know when.”

“So do I.”  He smiled up at him.  “You know if we don’t get right on it, we’ll blink and a year will have gone by.  I don’t want to wait.”

“If we’re doing this before I leave for Prague, that doesn’t leave much time for planning.”

“I want to get married at our house.”

“Then we’ll have to move back to Sussex at least three weeks before we intend to have the ceremony.  We can’t give notice to the registry office until we’ve been living there for seven days, and there’s a two-week waiting period after we give notice.”

“Have you been researching this already?”  John grinned, delighted by the image of Sherlock diligently looking up marriage license regulations on the Internet.

Sherlock cleared his throat.  “I may have done some Googling while you were at the studio this morning, yes.”  He met John’s eyes again.  “I am sorry your parents are being such arseholes.”

“I really shouldn’t be surprised, and yet somehow I am.  But thanks.”

“Do you…are you in need of a hug, or something?”

“If a hug is on offer, I won’t turn it down.”

 

* * *

 

John couldn’t sleep.

In a few short hours he was getting on a plane to fly to London for the single purpose of telling his disapproving parents about his engagement, then he was flying directly back.  Not even the prospect of seeing his siblings was enough to outweigh the heavy dread sitting in his stomach.

Sherlock turned over and spooned up close, wrapping his arm around John’s waist.  “Go to sleep,” he whispered into his neck.

“I can’t shut my brain off.”

“Stop thinking about your parents.”

“It isn’t just them.”

Sherlock shifted, and John felt him come a bit more awake.  “What, then? The Demme film?”

“I’m perfect for that part.  ‘Going in a different direction,’ my arse.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “It means nothing.”

“Bollocks.”  He rolled to his back, Sherlock shifting over to give him room.  “The Oscar was supposed to fix everything,” he said, staring at the ceiling.  “I was supposed to have project offers coming out my bloody ears.”

Sherlock propped his head up on his hand and looked down at him, his other hand resting on John’s bare chest. “This is why we pay our agents.  Not for the good years, when everyone wants to hire us, but for the difficult times.”

John snorted.  “So in 24 hours, I’ve gone from ‘Academy Award Winner John Watson’ to ‘difficult times.’  That didn’t take very fucking long, did it?”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what to say to you.”

“There’s nothing to say.  This is just how it is.”  He curled his hand around Sherlock’s upper arm, stroking the skin with his thumb.  “We’ll be all right, won’t we?”

“Of course.  We could retire right now and live comfortably for the rest of our lives.”

“I wasn’t talking about money.”

Sherlock met his eyes.  “We’ll be all right.”  He leaned down and kissed him gently.  John closed his eyes and kissed back, his worries chased away by the feeling of Sherlock’s soft lips and the smell of his skin.

By the time they drew apart, the dread had eased off a bit.  He looked up at Sherlock.   “You can do that some more, if you like.”

Sherlock stroked John’s chest.  “I could go with you to London.”

“I didn’t think you could get away. You’ve got meetings and that gala for the thing with the...”

“Nothing I can’t reschedule or skip. If you’d rather go alone, you need only say so.”

“No! I’d love for you to come, I just don’t want you to...”  He paused.  “Well, I was going to say ‘inconvenience yourself,’ but that sounds like something you say to a business associate, not your fiancé.  No, you absolutely ought to inconvenience yourself.  Inconvenience the _hell_ out of yourself.”

“We can kill two birds with one stone and tell my mother while we’re there.”

John sighed.  “Oh, dear.  This is shaping up to be more than a quick there-and-back.”

“Mother will try to get us to stay over at the house.”

“Ooh, I might like that.  Sleep in your old room.  The site of all your teenage wank sessions.”

“I believe my old room is now a gallery for my mother’s collection of Victorian embroidery.  If that gets you in the mood to wank, then we have some awkward conversations in our future.”

 

* * *

 

After a long flight and a detour to drop Harry at her flat, John was immensely glad to get to Baker Street. He tossed the keys onto the hall table and looked around with a sigh of relief.  It was amazing how much 221B felt like home given how little time he’d actually spent here.  Sherlock dropped onto the sofa and let his head fall back.  John had to look away from that long, elegant column of neck.   _No time for sex.  Avert your eyes_.

He wandered into the kitchen to make tea.  The nonstop internal rehearsals he’d been having for hours continued.   _Mum, Dad, I’m engaged.  I’m getting married.  Sherlock and I are getting married.  I’m going to marry Sherlock.  Sherlock asked me to marry him, and I accepted_.   _I’m engaged.  Sherlock and I are engaged.  I’m going to be Sherlock’s husband.  Sherlock’s going to be my husband._  He’d been through every possible phrasing and hadn’t settled on one yet.

Sherlock didn’t even open his eyes or lift his head when John handed him his tea.  He sat down next to him.  “You’re anxious,” Sherlock said.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“You’re under no...”

“Don’t tell me I’m under no obligation.  I can’t let my parents find out I’m getting married from Perez.”

“Your parents read Perez Hilton?”

“You know what I mean.  From the media.  They ought to hear it from me.”

“So instead of disapproving from thousands of miles away, they can disapprove right in your face.”

John sighed.  “I know you want to protect me, but...”

“I want to protect your equilibrium.  It’s entirely self-serving, I assure you.  Your distress causes me distress, and I wish to avoid distress.”

“I can deal with it.  And it ought to be _harder_ for them to be horrible when they’re looking right at me, the son that they – that they used to love.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “They still love you.”

“Not enough to accept my choice of a life partner, apparently.”

“Aren’t you the one always saying they need time?”

“They’ve had months!  How much bloody time...”  John broke off.  “Fuck it.  They will either accept it or they won’t.  The only thing I want to make absolutely clear is that I want you treated no differently than the spouses of their other children.”

“I don’t give a toss if they never speak to me or even look in my direction.  Forcing them to confront my existence further will only antagonize them.  Focus on their relationship with _you_.”

John checked his watch.  “Christ, it’s half five already.  I want to have a shower before Charlie gets here.”

“My offer stands.”

“I know.  I think I need to go over there by myself.  They’ll be less fidgety if I’m alone.” He turned his head and looked at Sherlock’s profile.  “What’ll you do?”

“Read.  Go for a walk, perhaps.”

“I don’t think I’ll be staying long.  Do you want to head up to Devon tonight?”

“Best just leave in the morning.”

“All right.” John patted Sherlock’s knee, got up and went into the bathroom for a shower.

He ended up having time to bolt a sandwich before Charlie arrived, bounding out of the lift to hug him.  “You look fantastic, Johnny!” he said.  “All fit and happy!”

“I’m actually bloody knackered and stressed, but thanks,” John said.

“Oh, that’s just the layer on top.  The fit and happy’s underneath. And Sherlock, great to see you,” he said, startling Sherlock with a one-armed man-hug.

“Um...likewise, Charlie.”

“I hate to rush you, but we’d best get on, John.  You’ll want to catch the parents before they’ve settled in too long for the night’s telly, or one of them will be asleep.”

John nodded.  “Right.”  He turned and exchanged a quick kiss with Sherlock.  “Back later.”

“Good luck.”

In the car, Charlie kept up a steady stream of chatter that John barely paid attention to.  By the time they arrived, the knot in John’s stomach had tightened a few notches.  “Are you coming in?” John asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll hang back.  I’ve been tinkering on Dad’s old motorbike in the garage, I’ll just go busy myself with that until you’re ready to leave.”

They walked into the house. John’s mother came into the hall when she heard the door.  A greeting for Charlie rose to her lips, but it died there when she saw that he wasn’t alone.  “John?” she said, shocked.

“Hello, Mum.”

“Oh, my…well.”  She pulled her cardigan jumper tighter around herself, glancing back towards the lounge.  “This is unexpected, isn’t it?”  She came forward and let him kiss her cheek, making no move to embrace him.  “Lovely to see you.  Why the surprise visit?”

“I came to see you.  And Dad.  I have some news.”

He saw her eyes flick past him.  “Are you...alone?”  He heard her real question loud and clear.

“Yes, I came alone.  Where’s Dad?”

“He’s in the lounge.”

“I’ll just be working on the motorbike,” Charlie said, heading for the garage.

“Oh...all right, then,” she said, looking a little puzzled.  John followed her into the lounge, where his parents spent most of their evenings, watching telly or reading.

When his father saw him, John saw a clear succession of emotions cross his face.  First there was surprise ( _My son’s come to visit, unexpectedly!_ ), then there was distress and anger ( _But he’s a queer now, and I hate it_ ), and finally there was nothing, just blank detachment ( _and I’m not supposed to have emotions about any of this_ ).  “Hello, Dad.”

“John,” he said, rising to his feet.  John wondered if he’d hug him, as he had in the past, but he just extended a hand.  John shook it.   _Better than nothing._  “Weren’t expecting you, were we?”

“No, it was a bit last minute. I came alone,” he said, heading off his father’s incipient discomfort at the idea that Sherlock might be with him.

“Oh.  Well, then.”  He sat back down.

John picked up the remote and turned the telly off.  “I came because I have something I want to tell you, and I wanted to do it in person.  Mum, sit down, will you?”

She sat down next to his father, both of them stone-faced.  John could all but see the panicked thoughts flitting behind their eyes.  He forced himself to smile -- it was still happy news in _his_ world, after all.  “I’m getting married.”

His father’s brow furrowed.  “Married, eh?  That might be a smart idea, Johnny.  Let everybody think you’re normal.”

John grit his teeth.  “No, Dad.  I’m marrying _Sherlock_.”  They just stared at him.  “Look, I don’t expect you to be excited about this.  I just needed you to know, and to hear it from me, in person.  I hope that you can at least be glad that I’m happy.”  John took a breath, then let it out slowly.   _Well, there’s that, then._

His father’s expression had not changed from ‘carved out of granite.’  His mother looked blank.  When it became clear that no response was imminent, John just went on.   “We’ll be having the wedding at the end of May, down in Sussex at our house.  It would please us both if you would come.”  Neither of them were looking him in the face.  His mother was dabbing at her eyes and kept shooting little glances at her husband, whose jaw was clenched so hard John wondered that he didn’t fracture his molars.  “You’ve got nothing to say to me, then?”

“I don’t…I’m not…” his mother began.

“What’s to bloody say?” his father said, cutting her off.

“Perhaps ‘Congratulations,’” John said, tightly.  “That is the traditional response when someone tells you they’re engaged.”

“Engaged,” his father repeated.

“Yes, Dad.  Engaged.”

“It’s not legal, is it?”

“Yes, it’ll be a legal civil partnership.”

“Civil partnership,” his mother said, the words sounding hollow in her mouth.

All at once, exhaustion threatened to overwhelm John’s self-control.  Why had he even come?  Why had he thought being here in person would make a difference?  He itched to leave, fly back to Baker Street and let Sherlock put him to bed and make him forget this room, this house and the looks on their faces.  “Mum, I’m…”  He hesitated.  “I’m sorry you’re upset.  I’m not sorry to be engaged to the man I love.”

His mother made a helpless little distressed noise at that.  “John, is this…is this my fault?” she said, her voice shaky.  His father crossed his arms and looked away; it was achingly clear that she’d been getting an earful for months about how much it _was_ her fault.

“Your _fault_?” John repeated, taken aback.  “There’s no…nothing’s anyone’s fault, there’s no fault.  I don’t know what you mean.”

“Was I too…to make you like this?”

John’s mouth opened and shut a few times before he got a word out.  “Make me like this?  I’m not like – like anything!  Nobody…”  He held up a hand.  “You know what?  Never mind.  It’s not worth it.”  He stood up.  “I’ve said what I came to say.  I’ll leave you to -- all this,” he said, flapping a hand at them.  “If you think you can have a civil conversation with me at some point, you know how to reach me.”  He left the room, hearing his mother’s tears continue behind him.  He pulled open the door to the garage.  “Charlie, let’s go,” he said.

He waited in the hall, shifting from one foot to the other, until Charlie appeared.  “So, how did that…”  He trailed off when he saw John’s face.  “All right, we’re going.”

“Yes.  Please.  Now.”

“How about some dinner at my house?” Charlie asked, as they got back in the car.

“Thanks, but I just want to get back to Baker Street.”

“So fast?  But Isabelle wanted to see you.”

“I’d not be the best company right now.”

Charlie sighed.  “All right, you’re going to make me tell you.”

John frowned.  “Tell me what?”

“Everyone’s at my house.  Ellie and Nathan, and Peter and Leigh, and all the kids...it’s sort of a surprise engagement party.  I was supposed to just tell you it was dinner with me and Deb, but they’re all there.  Dammit.”

John smiled.  He knew he ought to be angry, but on the heels of the conversation he’d just had, the idea that all his siblings wanted to celebrate was very welcome.  “And how did they all find out that I’m engaged?”

Charlie fidgeted, grumbling to himself.  “I confess!  I’m weak!”

“It’s a good thing for you that I’m an Academy Award winning actor.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m very well qualified to act surprised.”  They both laughed.  “Wait, we’ll have to swing by and collect Sherlock.”

“No need.  He’s already there.  Harry brought him over while we were at Mum and Dad’s.”

“I guess you’ve got this all sorted then, haven’t you?”

“Well, you know.  I thought this might not be the nicest visit you’ve ever had, and I just wanted to cheer you up a bit.”  Charlie beamed, proud of himself.

John felt tears pricking at the back of his eyes.  “Charlie, I...you know, I’ve been so focused on how Mum and Dad are reacting.  I ought to be more thankful that I’ve got a big brother like you.”

Charlie clapped him on the shoulder.  “Don’t mention it.  We all just want to see you as much as we can.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure!”

“Will you stand up with me at my wedding?”  Charlie said nothing for a moment.  “Be my best man?”

Charlie pulled over and turned to face him.  “Really, Johnny?”

“Yeah, of course, really.”

“You don’t want one of your fancy Hollywood friends?  You’d ask your boring, decrepit brother?”

John grinned.  “You’re neither.  And of course I want you there.  If you’re willing.”

“Willing?”  Charlie pulled John into an awkward across-the-gearshift hug, then kissed his cheek.  “I’d be honoured.  Really.”

“Good, smashing,” John said, relieved.

“Only...” Charlie trailed off, frowning.

“What?”

“How do I throw a stag party when you’re both blokes?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my lovely beta readers, roane72 and mazarin221b.

It was a twenty minute drive to Charlie’s house, and John was grateful for it.  Time enough to shake off the unpleasant conversation he’d had with his parents and let Charlie’s good humor coax him into a happier frame of mind, so that when they walked into the house, John was ready to be greeted with a chorus of shouts and cheers, and some small children flinging themselves at his legs.  “God, everyone really is here, aren’t they?” John said, hugging his sister Eleanor.

“We had to see you, John!” she said, kissing his cheek. “We just couldn’t let you go back to the States without celebrating your win and your wonderful news!”

He smiled.  “Yeah, it is pretty wonderful, isn’t it?”  

Ellie leaned closer.  “How’d it go with Mum and Dad?”

John sighed.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”  She squeezed his arm, sympathy in her eyes.

“John,” Peter said, coming up to hug him.  “Still waiting for that growth spurt, I see.”

“Oi, you wanker,” John said, reaching up and hooking one arm around his little brother’s neck. “Got any hair on your balls yet, then?”

“Still waxing your chest?” Peter countered.  “I hear all you fancy actors do that shite.”

John looked around at the cheerful cacophony, but he didn’t see Sherlock.  “Where is my intended, then?  You all haven’t scared him off already, have you?”

“He survived Christmas with us, I think he’s un-scareable,” Ellie said.  “He’s in the kitchen.”

John made his way there, stopping to hug his niece Isabelle and cuddle Peter’s two-year-old daughter, Alice.  He could smell the dinner cooking, and he spied one of Ellie’s banoffee pies waiting on the sideboard.  He found Sherlock talking to Ellie’s husband Nathan in the kitchen.  He had a glass of wine in his hand and he looked relaxed; the sight of him was like a balm to John’s raw nerves, even more so when Sherlock spotted him and gave him that little half-smile, the one meant just for him, a twinkle appearing in his eyes.  John shook Nathan’s hand.  

“Good to see you, John,” he said.

“Likewise, Nate.”  John looked at Sherlock, who was obviously waiting for a cue as to how to behave.  John went right to him and tilted his face up.  Sherlock took the hint and kissed him.  “How long did you know about this, clever clogs?”

“Oh, about an hour.  Harry rang me just after you’d left with Charlie.”

“Sorry about this,” John said.  Nathan had moved off into the lounge, leaving them alone.  “Probably not what you had planned for the evening.”

“This’ll do.  I suppose I ought to get used to these sort of...gatherings.”

“What, mad family circus?  Yes, I suppose you ought.”

Sherlock glanced around, then drew John out of the kitchen into the adjoining laundry room for a little privacy.  “Well?  How did it go?”

John sighed.  “Can’t you tell by looking at my face?”

“Mostly.  I’d still like to know.”

“My mother’s ready to fall on her sword for somehow turning me gay.  My father thought that when I said I was engaged, I meant that I was going to marry a woman for publicity.”

Sherlock’s face was blank.  “I keep thinking we’re reaching the pinnacle of his idiocy, but then he says something even more moronic and reveals another peak to be scaled.”

John looked up at Sherlock’s face, happiness at the sight of him chasing away the lingering awfulness of the conversation with his parents.  “Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Remind me why I’m going through all this?”

Sherlock smiled a little and kissed him, curling one arm around his shoulders.  John cupped Sherlock’s jaw and leaned into it.  He broke off after a few moments but stayed close, their foreheads touching.  “People should have to present proof of their intelligence and character before they’re allowed to speak to you.  You should not be subjected to such human inadequacy.”

“You’re worth it.”

A discreet throat-clearing interrupted them just as they were about to resume kissing.  John looked up to see Isabelle peeking into the laundry room.  “Sorry,” she said, wincing.

“It’s all right, luv.  What’s up?”

“Dad wants to toast you or something.  Come have a drink.”

“All right.”  They followed Isabelle out into the living room, where they were greeted by a great rousing cheer from the entire assembled family.

“Bloody hell,” Sherlock said, under his breath.

“You guys,” John said, grinning.  Deb shoved glasses of champagne into their hands while Charlie stepped up to John’s side and slung one beefy arm around his shoulders.

“All right, all.  I know we’re all thrilled to welcome home our brother John, the Oscar winning actor,” Charlie said, beaming.  The rest of the family clapped and cheered.  “As well as our new brother, Sherlock, who I hear is a decent actor, too.”  Everyone laughed, even Sherlock.  “But seriously,” Charlie went on, losing the jokey tone.  “Sherlock, we love our Johnny, and it’s plain to see that you do, too.  So welcome to the family, and all I can say is brace up, because once you and John are married you’ll be official, and we all get to stop being polite and start pestering and nagging and intruding on you just like we do to John.

“If you’d like to make a break for it, now’s the time,” John said, glancing up at Sherlock.

“I fear I’d be tackled to the ground before I was able to gain the front door.”  Everyone laughed.

Charlie held up his glass.  “So let’s all raise our glasses to John and Sherlock.  May you have a long, happy life together, full of love and big box-office.”  He clinked his glass against John’s, then Sherlock’s, as the rest of the family echoed the toast and clinked glasses as well.  On impulse, John grabbed Sherlock and kissed him, rather thoroughly.  Applause and cheers couldn’t quite drown out the jokey “Ewww” that came from his brother Peter’s general direction.

“Thanks, you lot,” John said.  “I’m...that is, we’re grateful for the family support.  I can’t tell you how much...”  He was suddenly choked up, and had to pause and collect himself.  “It means a lot.  A couple of you have asked, so I’ll just say now that we don’t have an exact date, but it’ll be the end of May, down in Sussex.”

“Right, then,” Charlie said, clapping his hands together.  “Now, the important stuff.  Let’s eat!”

 

* * *

 

John was slumped in the passenger seat for the drive to Devon; Sherlock had taken one look at him and actually _offered_ to drive.  John was exhausted, mentally and physically.  It had taken not one hour but two, not to mention two more ill-advised ales, to get out of Charlie’s house. Persistent worry over his parents and a dash of nervousness about telling Sherlock’s mother had robbed him of peaceful sleep.  He had no idea how Sherlock was fresh as a daisy this morning, the inhuman wanker. 

He did manage to doze a little bit on the way, but woke when Sherlock pulled off the main road onto the drive.  He sat up straight, combing his fingers through his hair, which he was currently wearing in a style he liked to call Fast Shower, No Product.  Sherlock sighed.  “You look fine.”

“I look like I got no sleep and dozed off in a car.  Do I have seat-marks on my face?”

“No.”  Sherlock pulled up to the house and parked.

John had been here once before, but the house seemed larger than he remembered.  It wasn’t a palace or an estate, just a very large, sprawling Edwardian home, at least three times as large as John’s house in Los Angeles.  The front door opened and Mycroft emerged, looking buttoned-up and stiff-upper-lipped as usual.  John got out of the car.  “John,” Mycroft said, coming forward, hand extended.

John shook it.  “Morning, Mycroft.  Good to see you.”  He’d only met Sherlock’s mysterious older brother once.  He’d just shown up at their house one day a few weeks before the Oscars, although Sherlock hadn’t seemed surprised to see him.  They’d had one of the most awkward conversations of John’s life, and he still had no idea what Mycroft thought of him.

“I wanted to be here for your little…announcement,” he said, his eyes flicking to Sherlock and back.

“Mycroft, don’t be tiresome,” Sherlock grumbled.

“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” John said, tightly.

“Oh, it will be to Mummy, have no fear.”  They all trooped into the house, Sherlock and his brother exchanging a terse nod.

“Mother!” Sherlock called.  John heard footsteps, quick and light, and then Elizabeth Holmes appeared at the end of the hallway.  She was slight in a well-bred way that was just beginning to thicken with age, impeccably dressed and coiffed.

Beaming, she strode toward them.  “John, darling!” she exclaimed, wrapping up a surprised John in an enthusiastic hug.  “So wonderful to see you.  I wish you’d call more often.”  She kissed one cheek, then the other, then took his arm and began walking him back to the living room, barely sparing a glance for her actual son, who trailed along behind, radiating pique.  “Sherlock, dear, do stand up straight,” she said over her shoulder.

“Um…it’s nice to see you too, Mrs. Holmes,” John said.

“Oh, stop, you must call me Elizabeth.  Or Eliza.  Just as you like.”  She sat down on the sofa, pulling John down beside her.  Sherlock sat in a nearby chair while Mycroft merely loomed in the background.  “I hope you got the flowers I sent.”

“Yes, they were lovely, thank you.”

“I’m so proud!  Best Actor Winner John Watson!  I’ve just been telling everyone, that’s _my son’s partner_ , isn’t he brilliant?”

“You weren’t this excited when _I_ won an Oscar,” Sherlock said, utterly failing to keep the petulant note from his voice.  John smothered a snort of laughter.

“Well, that was more or less a given, wasn’t it, though?  That award was yours to lose, dearest.”

Sherlock harrumphed and leaned forward.  “Mother, this isn’t just a social call, we’ve come to give you some news.”

“What news, darling?”

Sherlock met John’s eyes briefly, a smile quirking his mouth.  “John and I are getting married.”

Elizabeth gasped, her hands flying to her face.  “Really?”

“Yes, really,” John said, grinning.

“Oh, my dear boy,” Elizabeth said.  She reached out and hugged John again.  He met Sherlock’s eyes over her shoulder in time to see him execute a truly epic eyeroll.  “A wedding, what wonderful news! Have you selected a date?”

“More or less,” Sherlock said.  “Right now it’s looking like the last Saturday in May.”

Elizabeth drew back and looked at Sherlock, her eyes wide.  “Of _this year_?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Sherlock!  That isn’t nearly enough time!  I’ll have to have the grounds redone, and all the guest rooms turned, and there’s the food to arrange…”

“Mother,” Sherlock said.  “We’re not having the wedding here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you are.  Where else would you have it?”

“We have a very lovely home of our own in Sussex.”

“Oh, not that little shack of your father’s.”

“It’s hardly a shack, and it’s very suitable.”

“There’s not remotely enough room there!  Where will you put everyone?”

“We’re not planning a large ceremony.  Just our families, and a few close friends.  Thirty people at the most.”

Elizabeth’s mouth gaped open.  She clutched John’s arm.  “John, you must help me talk some sense into him.”

“Sherlock and I agree on this,” John said.  “This is what we want.”

“But…”

“I’m sorry, Mother, but my wedding will not be turned into one of your society events,” Sherlock said, his tone going a bit stony.  “We’ll be having it at the Sussex house.  The garden is plenty large enough for our guests.  We’ll hire in the food and get a magistrate from Hailsham, what more do we need?”

“What about…what about the music?” Elizabeth said.  She was growing shrill now, and grasping at straws a bit.

Sherlock threw up his hands and got to his feet.  “For God’s sake, we’ll program a playlist onto someone’s iPod!  What does it matter?  We want to be married at our own home with as little fuss as possible, why is that so difficult to accept?”

“I…I just…”  Elizabeth wrung her hands.  “I’ve dreamed of throwing a big, beautiful wedding for one of you boys, here at the house…”  She blinked and dabbed one fingertip daintily at the corner of her eye.  “I suppose some dreams just aren’t meant to come true.”

Sherlock had told John, more than once, that his mother was manipulative and overbearing, but the first (and only) time he’d met her before now, John had found her pleasant and warm.  He was starting to see what Sherlock meant.  “Elizabeth,” he said, gently, “wouldn’t you rather attend our wedding as an honored guest?  Not having to worry about a thing or do for anyone, just to enjoy the day?”

She met his eyes, her own still a bit teary.  “I suppose…that does sound nice, in a way."

“And it isn’t _your_ occasion,” Sherlock said.  “It’s ours.  It is not about you and your continual need to show off in front of your friends.  None of whom will be invited, I might add.”

“Sherlock, why must you be so…judgmental?”

“If I am so, I surely learned it from the master.”

“I am not judgmental!  I have many acquaintances from all walks of life.  John, your family is working class, are they not?”

John blinked.  “Yes, I suppose so.”

“And I’ll be very eager to meet them, I’m sure.”

The thought that his family would be meeting the Holmes family hadn’t really struck John until that very moment.  He exchanged an alarmed glance with Sherlock, who seemed to have just had the same realization.  “My brothers and sisters will be glad to meet you, too.”

“And your parents, of course.”

“I’m…not entirely sure they’ll be attending.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened.  “Why on earth wouldn’t they attend their son’s wedding?”

“I’m afraid my parents are not very accepting of the fact that I’m marrying a man.”

“Oh, my dear boy,” she said, her indignation melting into sympathy.  “I admit it gave me a bit of a turn as well when I first found out.  They just need a bit of time to get used to it. I was the same way, but as you see, all is well now.”

“Yes, once you realized that having a gay son splashed all over the news was good for dinner invites,” Sherlock muttered.

She shot him an imperious look before turning back to John.  “I’m sure your parents will come around, given time.”

“Well, I hope so,” John said.  “I can’t take anything for granted just now.”

She gave him a wry little smile.  “I’m sorry Sherlock isn’t likely to be better at charming them.”

“Oh, God,” Sherlock muttered.

“You are prickly at your best, dear,” she said.

John was torn between the urge to defend his future husband from this character assault and being unable to deny its truth.  In the end, practicality won out.  “Sherlock’s fitting right in with my family, actually,” he said.  “My brothers and sisters all like him just fine.”

“Well, thank goodness for that.”  Elizabeth had maintained her iron grip on John’s hand throughout this entire conversation.  Now she patted it with her free hand, as well.  “I wish you boys had told me you were coming, I’d have had the blue room turned out for you."

“We’re not staying, Mother.  In fact, we ought to be getting back to town.  Our flight leaves this evening.”

Elizabeth looked positively scandalized at this.  “You drove all the way out here just to turn right around and go back again?  I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous.  You’ll stay the night.”

“Mother…”

“Sherlock Holmes, you mind me, now!  You’ll stay the night and I won’t hear another word about it!”

Sherlock shot John a helpless look.  John shrugged.  “Yes, ma’am,” Sherlock muttered, sagging in his chair, looking defeated.

 

* * *

 

Dinner _chez_ Holmes was a hastily thrown-together affair, as Elizabeth had not been expecting them, but she still insisted on seating everyone in the formal dining room and serving wine.  Sherlock pushed his food around his plate and kept his mouth shut in the interests of peace; he entertained himself watching John unleash the full power of his charm arsenal on his mother.  In his private life, John could be just as irascible as Sherlock himself, but he had interpersonal skills that Sherlock could only marvel at.  Since their relationship had become public, Sherlock had been regaled with many tales courtesy of John’s former co-workers.  Tales about John defusing tantrums thrown by testy screen divas, calming irate producers, smoothing out catfights and deflecting journalists from uncomfortable topics.  He’d seen it himself.  Sometimes he wondered why John had never really attempted to corral _him_ before they’d become friends.  Perhaps John just knew a lost cause when he saw one. 

He was grateful for it now, though; John was effectively keeping his mother’s attention off him and focused on more neutral topics.  As such, dinner passed without incident, and he and John pled fatigue and retired to one of the guest rooms as soon as it as remotely polite to do so.

John fell into bed almost immediately and was soon asleep, but Sherlock was restless.  He was dying for a smoke, but he hardly dared.

_Fuck it, just one.  Mitigating circumstances._

He retrieved one of the packs he had hidden all over this house, fetched his coat and scarf and snuck out onto the side verandah, the site of his clandestine youthful smokes.

He’d barely taken his first puff when that insufferable, silken voice drifted towards him, as if hitching a ride on the plume of cigarette smoke.  “My, aren’t we rebellious tonight?”

He sighed and took another drag.  “Fuck off, Mycroft.”

“Such shortness of temper for a man recently betrothed, brother mine.  Shouldn’t you be incandescently happy?”

“Who says I’m not?  It’s not possible for me to be so happy that I will lose the need for you to fuck off.”

Mycroft appeared at his side.  He glanced at the cigarette in Sherlock’s hand, then quickly away again.  Sherlock pulled another one out of the pack and handed it to him, holding out his lighter.  Mycroft looked at the cigarette for a moment, a sneer of distaste on his lips, then relented, took it and bent to the flame.  “I’ll regret this in the morning.”

They smoked in silence for a few moments.  “You are, though, aren’t you?” Mycroft finally said.

“What?”

“Incandescently happy.”

Sherlock snorted.  “I’m not dignifying such hyperbole with a response.”

“I confess that the notion of you mating for life had never occurred.”

“Must you put it like that?  I’m not a panda.”

“Your John, he’s...suitable.”

“I never asked for your approval.”

“No, in fact you probably hoped for the opposite, so that you could throw a teenage strop and declare that you didn’t care if I didn’t approve, you’d do as you like.  Sorry to take the wind out of your sails.”

“Do I look surprised?  As if you hadn’t thoroughly background-checked John the minute he was cast in ‘To a Stranger,’ and then done it again when we became involved.”

“ _Involved_ ,” Mycroft repeated, as if he were testing the word.  “Is that what you are?”

Sherlock sighed.  “I understand such things are foreign to you, but I really must insist you stop treating my relationship as a curiosity to be dissected.”

“I can’t help but be curious.  It’s just so...unexpected.  It must have been to you, as well.”

He stubbed out his cigarette.  “Yes, it was,” he said, quietly.  “And to everyone who knows me, and you, and Mother.”  He grit his teeth.  “I suppose I owe you some thanks for bearing the brunt of that.”

Mycroft shrugged.  “It wasn’t all that bad.  A bit of wailing at first, but once the Harrowgate Ladies’ Club invites started coming in, suddenly it wasn’t so terrible that you were dating a man.”

Sherlock snorted.  “Dating.  How I loathe that word.  And it’s not even accurate, John and I never really dated.  If such a thing even exists.  Don’t people generally just find each other on the Internet these days?  Does anyone _date_?  Oh, but look who I’m asking.”

“I’ve rather been waiting for you to ask me if I’ve found anything of concern in my forays into John’s past.”

He turned toward Mycroft, frowning.  “Why on earth would I do that?”

“Because you’re curious.”

“There’s nothing about him that I don’t already know.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true.  Just as there are things about you that he doesn’t know.  Please, spare me the nonsense about how you know the depths of his soul, or whatever rubbish people in love spout to each other.”

“Anyway, we’re both high-profile actors in a ‘groundbreaking personal relationship,’” he said, making air-quotes and rolling his eyes, “with no end of people who’d love to smear us both with the blackest brush they could find.  If there were skeletons in John’s closet, they’d have been hauled into the light long before now.”

Mycroft faced him.  “What makes you think I’d ever allow that to happen?”

Sherlock was momentarily thrown for a loop.  “You’re saying...what are you saying?”

“Sherlock, much as you refuse to believe it, I do care about your happiness, and it is as plain as day that John makes you happy.  He’s part of the family now, and whatever protection I can offer you also applies to him.”

“I...thank you,” Sherlock said, surprised into brevity.

Mycroft flapped a hand.  “Unnecessary.”

“Have you, then...well…”  He hesitated, unsure how to ask, or if he even wanted to know.

“I’ve not had occasion to intercede on John’s behalf,” Mycroft said, understanding the unasked question.  “In fact, he’s rather appallingly boring.  If you do fear for skeletons, you’d do better to look in your own closet than his.  The worst he’s done is acquire a few speeding tickets and get himself reprimanded in the service for being caught in a...ahem, compromising position with a superior officer.”  Mycroft smirked.  “And yes, it was a female officer.”

“I don’t care about that,” Sherlock snapped.

“I’m afraid the worst you have to fear from him is yourself, Sherlock.  I can only hope that you don’t manage to bodge this up.  I find that I rather like him.  A bit simple, perhaps.  Still, there’s a...quality.”

“I don’t plan to bodge it up, as you say.”

“Do you ever?” Mycroft said, with a wry little smile.  He sighed, moving on with the conversation.  “You’re leaving in the morning, then?”

“Yes, as soon as there’s enough daylight to see the road, if I have my way.”

“Straight back to the den of iniquity?”

“If you mean Los Angeles, yes.  We both have obligations.  Mycroft…”  A question did now occur, but he was loathe to ask.  He hated to put himself in the position of being beholden to his brother, in any respect.  “John’s career.  You’d tell me if someone were...well…”

“Interfering?  I’m sure people are interfering.  But not beyond the normal machinations of what I can only assume is standard Hollywood politicking, distasteful though it may be.  I can’t stop people from being ignorant twats, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, of course.  Forget I asked.”  He turned to head back into the house, whereupon he’d have to get in the shower and scrub both his body and his mouth before getting into bed with John.

“Sherlock?”

He turned.  Mycroft’s face was shadowed.  “What?”

“I really am happy for you.  Please don’t hesitate to ask if I can help smooth anything over where your legal status is concerned.”

Sherlock quashed the urge to unleash a snarky comeback.  Mycroft was sincere -- he knew the difference -- and he’d be even more of a boor than he was thought to be if he couldn’t accept it.  “Thank you.”  He started back, then turned again.  “Goodnight, Mycroft.”

Mycroft’s head inclined slightly.  “Goodnight, little brother.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I ought to nip this in the bud given the number of times it's come up in comments and such, but...there won't be a stag night in this fic. It doesn't really fit with how their wedding is set up. You'll see what I mean when we get there. Sorry to disappoint!
> 
> Also, yes, I know you can't get legally married at a private home in the UK. You can still have a ceremony wherever you want, you just have to do it again at an official place with the paperwork and such for it to be legal. Have faith in my research-fu.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to mazarin221b and roane72 for their beta support and to tzikeh, my forever-beta.

 

_two weeks later_

 

The closest parking spot Sherlock could find was a block away from the restaurant.  He paused before getting out of the car, cursing Greg for picking this neighborhood; there were always paparazzi around and he was not in the mood today.  He looked around; no cameras were in sight, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.  He heard Irene’s voice in his head: _Be civil, be nice, and if you can’t be civil or nice, be aloof.  Do not give them anything unusual or newsworthy, because that’s what they want._  It was sound advice, and Sherlock could appreciate the logic in it, but it was contrary to his very nature to be civil to those jackals.

He took a deep breath and got out of his car, buttoning his jacket as he took long, quick strides.  He saw a glint from across the street and glanced over; a photographer on the far side had spotted him and was shooting photos.  That was fine, he didn’t care if they took photos of him walking from a non-obtrusive distance.

The host showed him to Greg’s table.  Greg rose to shake Sherlock’s hand.  “Thanks for fitting me in.  I know it was short notice.”

Sherlock took his seat.  “Indeed.”

“I think we should line up some projects for after Tesla.”

Sherlock arched one eyebrow.  “A conversation that is only urgent if it is not hypothetical, leading me to conclude that you have at least one, probably several, projects in mind that require my immediate perusal.”

“I stopped being impressed with your ability to know everything years ago.”  Greg reached down into his briefcase and brought out a stack of scripts.  “I’m getting a lot of calls for you.”

“Hmm.  Interesting.”   _And yet John is getting no calls at all._

“These are the scripts I’d like you to take home and read.”

Sherlock blinked.  “I…can you email them to me?”

“They didn’t send me electronic copies, can’t you just take these home?”  Greg sat back, understanding coming over his face.  “Oh.  You don’t want John to see them.”

“I don’t feel comfortable parading my potential projects before him.”

“Has it been that bad?  I haven’t spoken to Mike recently.”

“Neither has John.  That’s the problem.”

“But surely he wouldn’t want you to freeze him out of your career decisions.”

“No.  But I’d rather not mention it, for the time being.  Sherlock fiddled with his water glass.  “I’m worried, Greg.  Have you…”  He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable with the multiple breaches of Hollywood etiquette he was about to commit.  “Have you heard anything?  About John? I never imagined that it would be this quiet for him, especially after the Oscar.”

“The only things I’ve heard have been positive comments about 'To a Stranger.'  Why?”

“Jim Moriarty said something to me after the Oscars.  I know this may sound paranoid, but he threatened to ruin John’s career and said that he had the means to do so.  I wrote it off as egotistical grandstanding, but given the utter lack of projects being offered to John, I cannot help but wonder.  Surely he doesn’t have that kind of influence.”

“No.  Absolutely not.  He fancies himself some kind of Svengali, but he couldn’t sway directors from casting someone they think would benefit their film.”

“Which leads to the conclusion that no director thinks that John would benefit their films, which is ludicrous.”

“Agreed.”  Greg thought for a moment.  “All right.  I’ll email the producers and ask for these scripts in pdf format.  Be warned, they may not agree.”

“Understood.”  Rampant leakage of scripts had made producers and screenwriters very leery of having their scripts floating around in pixels.

“But at least take this one,” he said, holding out the top script on the pile.  “I’m prepared to threaten you with bodily harm if you don’t take it.”

Sherlock took the script and looked at the title.  His stomach clenched.  “Really?”

“Really.”

“You know that I…”

“I know.  Sherlock, this role could be a turning point for you.  Just think about it.”

 

* * *

 

_one week later_

 

John was sitting at the kitchen bar, eating a bagel and drinking tea when he heard the back door open.  “Hey,” he said, giving Sherlock a smile around a mouthful of bagel.

Sherlock bent over him and swept a little dab of cream cheese from the corner of his mouth, then kissed him.  “Hello.”

“How was the fitting?”

“Tiresome.  And sadly, not remotely over.  Bloody period wardrobe.”

“Have you met any of your co-stars?”

“I met Liev today.  He was pleasant and professional.  We had an encouraging chat about the script.  I’m optimistic that we’ll get through the shoot without him taking out a contract on my life.”

“Oh dear.  Should I be worried?”

“I’ll not dignify that with a reply.”

“You just missed Harry and Sally.  They gave us homework.  We’re to finalize the guest list and send it along, and if we don’t do it tonight, we’re to be severely beaten.  What’ve you got on later?”

“Speaking at a benefit for arts education in schools, if memory serves.  You?”

“Going to Paul’s premiere.”

“Going anywhere without you is becoming a nuisance.  Inevitably journalists ignore whatever I’m actually there for and ask endless questions about why you’re not with me.”

“Same here.  We could always have Irene coordinate our schedules, so we can go to each other’s appearances.  Present a united front.”

“Thus effectively doubling the number of events we’ll each have to attend.”

John frowned.  “Oh.  I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Sherlock shrugged.  “The burdens we must bear.  Speaking of,” he said, his face scrunching in distaste, “let’s get this list-making over with.”

John passed him a sheet of paper and a pen, taking one for himself.  “We’ll each make out our list and then see where we’ve got people in common, and then make one master list.  Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

John bent his head to the paper and began writing.

 

_Mum and Dad (maybe)_

_Harry plus one (Clara?)_

_Charlie, Deb, Isabelle and Liam_

_Ellie, Nathan and the boys_

_Peter, Louise and the kids_

_Mike plus one_

_Irene plus one_

_Molly plus one_

_Paul & Jenny_

_Rachel & Daniel_

_Sarah & Anthea_

 

John paused, then quickly counted off how many people he’d already listed. _Bugger, that’s already nearly thirty people_.  They’d been saying they wanted around thirty people total. _Well, Irene will also be on Sherlock’s list, Molly as well most likely…shit.  No wonder people always seem to have trouble with this bit._

John was pondering who to cut and if he ought to also invite a cousin he was fairly close to when Sherlock’s stillness caught his eye; he looked over to find him staring blankly into space.  He looked at Sherlock’s list – all he had on it were Mycroft, his mother, and Greg.  “What’s wrong?  Is your pen out of ink?”

“I can’t think of anyone else.”

“Don’t you want to invite any friends?”

Sherlock met his eyes.  “I don’t have any friends.  Just you.”

John didn’t quite know how to respond to that.  “I don’t think that’s true,” he said.

“It believe it is.  I have casual acquaintances, and co-workers whom I do not wish to kill and who do not wish to kill me.  But friends, real ones?  I barely knew what that meant before I met you.  There’s no one else.”

John opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by the phone.  He winced and picked it up; it was Mike.  “I better get this.”  Sherlock nodded, and went back to staring at his heartbreakingly short list of wedding guests.  John answered the phone.  “Cheers, Mike.”

“John.  Good news, I think.”

“Am I meeting for the part?”

“Um…no, it isn’t about that.  I’ve gotten a call from Rob Reiner, he wants to see you.”

John frowned.  “Is he trying to tempt me back to rom-com land?”

“Not as such.  But he’s doing a coming-of-age story, there’s a part for you.”

John’s heart sank.  “Coming of age, huh?  Tell me, Mike.  Am I to play the gay uncle, or the gay art teacher?”

Mike hesitated, then cleared his throat.  “Well, it’s history teacher, actually, but…”

“No.”  Sherlock was watching him by now, a slight furrow between his eyebrows.  “I’m not doing it.”

“You don’t want people think you’re afraid of gay roles.”

“I’m not _afraid_ of them, but I can’t establish a precedent that this is all I play now.  And I’m not going down to five-page roles after playing lead for ten years.  It’s a slippery slope and I’ll never be able to climb back up.  What happened to ‘Life, Annotated’?  I’m perfect for that.”

“They’re not going to ask you to read.”

John sighed.  “This is getting ridiculous.  What must I do?”

“I think some time might…”

“Time?  You think _time_ might help?  Aren’t people always saying to strike while the iron’s hot?” He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “Mike, is this it for me?”  Sherlock was now watching with undisguised concern.  “Is it over?”

“No,” Mike said, emphatically.  “Don’t overreact, John.  It’s only been a few weeks.”

“But shouldn’t winning make me _more_ likely to…”  He stopped.  “You know what, never mind.  I’m not in the best headspace to worry about this now.  But we both know that things changed months ago, when my personal life suddenly became a topic of national discourse.  This was supposed to help.  So far, it hasn’t.  And if an Oscar can’t resuscitate my career, I don’t know what to think.”

“We will find you a role.  A role that will remind people why you won that Oscar, and why they paid millions of dollars to see you in dozens of films.”

“If you say so.”  John hung up and tossed the phone to the counter.  He rubbed his temple with one hand, then met Sherlock’s eyes.

“It’ll happen,” Sherlock said.

Irritation shot up John’s spine, propelling him to his feet and halfway across the room.  “That’s easy for you to say, you’re about to start shooting your dream project.  And don’t think I don’t know about that script that you’ve got hidden in your desk upstairs.”

Sherlock went still.  “You do?”

“I’m not an idiot, Sherlock!  I _live_ here!  Why didn’t you say anything?  Part of our deal was that we were going to talk about our projects and read each other’s scripts!”

Sherlock rubbed the back of his neck.  “I felt uncomfortable discussing the matter while you’re having – difficulties.”

“No.  We can’t start that.  I want to hear about your projects.  I can handle it, I’m a grown-ass man.”

Sherlock rose to his feet and grabbed John by the upper arms.  “Your career is not over.”

“People do keep saying that.”

“Because it’s the truth.  You’ve just turned the industry’s conception of you on its head, John.  Everyone’s having to reorient how they think of you.  It may take time for that shift to occur.”

John sighed, pulled away and paced a few steps back and forth, rubbing a hand through his hair.  “I’ve just never been in this position before.  Not working scares me.”

“You could take the gay history teacher role you were just offered.  I know you’re tempted.”

“I’m tempted.  I’m resisting because you convinced me I could be more.  Fuck, Sherlock, you better be right.”

“Have you ever known me not to be?”

“Shall I remind you that at one time you thought I would ruin ‘To a Stranger’ with my crap acting?”

Sherlock smirked.  “Unfair.  I was forming opinions without the benefit of all the facts.”

John’s eyes fell back on their guest lists, still sitting on the breakfast bar.  “Bugger, we’re supposed to be making guest lists.”

“I’ve completed mine.”

“All right, then, give it.” John took both lists and pulled his laptop near.  He typed in their joint list, eliminating the duplicates, and uploaded it to the shared drive.  “Done.  Our homework is complete for the day.”

“I dread tomorrow’s assignment.  If it involves flowers in any fashion, we’re eloping.”

John turned toward him.  “Now.  Are you going to show me this script or not?”

Sherlock regarded him for a moment, then wordlessly rose and headed for the stairs.  John followed him up and into Sherlock’s office.  Sherlock opened a desk drawer and pulled a script out from under some binders, holding out to him.

John’s eyes widened when he saw the title.  “Sherlock…is this what I think it is?”

“Yes.  They’re finally making a film of _The Alienist_.”

“Who’s the director?” John asked, flipping the script open.

“No decision.  DreamWorks bought the rights from Paramount last summer; Spielberg’s producing but it’s unlikely he’ll direct.  Word is that Cuaron might take it.”

“Tell me they want you for Kreizler.”

“They do.  And therein you see my dilemma.”

John nodded.  “You’re about to star in a miniseries playing an oddball Victorian genius, and if you take this film, you’d be following it up by playing another oddball Victorian genius.”  John shook his head.  “Jesus, Nancy Oliver adapted this?  You have to do it.”

“I don’t know.  I’ve so far managed to resist typecasting of this kind.”

“Can you fit in another project between?  Put some space between them?”

“I doubt it.  I’ve got some time to decide, anyway.  They won’t be finalizing casting until a director is hired.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“As I said, I didn’t wish to…”

“No.  Just…no.  We don’t keep things from each other.  That’s the deal.  Understood?”

Sherlock nodded.  “As you wish.”

“No, don’t give me that, either.  It has to be as _you_ wish, too.  You said it yourself.  Remember our first few days together?  In Sussex?  You said you wanted me to be part of your career decisions, and you wanted to be part of mine.”

Sherlock met his eyes; John saw there a heartbreaking little glimmer of amazement.  “You remember that?”

“I remember every single thing you said that night.  I will never forget it as long as I live, which means you’d better live up to it.”

Sherlock nodded.  “I will.  You have my word, John.”

John nodded.  “Good.”  He held out the script to Sherlock.  “Then I’ll read it when you ask me to, when you’re ready to make a decision.”

 

* * *

 

_one month later_

 

Irene looked from John to Sherlock and back again.  They were sitting at the kitchen table, Sherlock’s laptop between them, hands clasped tightly on the tabletop.  “Are you ready?”

John met Sherlock’s eyes.  “We’re ready.”

Irene nodded.  She turned to her own computer and tapped a few keys, then smiled at them over the top of the screen.  “Okay.  It’s done.  You are now publicly engaged.”

John exhaled.  “Blimey.”  He looked over at Sherlock.  “No backing out now.  You’re stuck with me.”

Sherlock winked.  “Then my cunning plan has succeeded.”

“Oh, it was your plan from day one to bamboozle me into marriage, was it?”

“Naturally.  A single actor of good fortune and talent must be in want of a man.”

John laughed.  He loved the sight of Sherlock’s face creased into unselfconscious laugh lines, his eyes twinkling with the happiness that John hoped he was at least partially responsible for.

Sherlock turned his attention back to the Twitter home feed.  “How long will this take?” he asked Irene.

“Not long.  The release went out to all the major digital outlets as well as the print media.  It won’t be…oh, here we go.”

John leaned over and saw a tweet pop up, from EW Online.  “Breaking:  John & Sherlock to marry. #sherlockholmes #johnwatson #johnandsherlock.”

“And they’re off,” Sherlock murmured.  Before John’s wondering eyes, he saw the post’s retweet count go up, and additional tweets pop up from other outlets.  Sherlock opened a new window following their hashtag.  Congratulations and excited cheers from fans were soon appearing, peppered with the occasional hellfire damnation tweet and expressions of disgust and outrage.  Thankfully, these were all but buried in what soon became a flood of congratulations.

John sat back with a sigh.  “All right.  That’s done, then.  And now we have to put on our party clothes and go to the theater because – why, exactly?”

“Because you can’t hide out after making this announcement,” Irene said, back on her phone and her laptop at the same time.  “You have to be seen, you have to give the press a chance at you, even if it’s just for a quick moment.  And you have to look pretty.”

“That is a given,” Sherlock said, one eyebrow twitching in amusement.  “Come, John.  Let’s get ourselves sorted.”

John glanced at his watch.  “Already?  But it’s…we’ve got hours until…”

Sherlock stood up and held out his hand.  “I’m aware of the time.  I’m sure we’ll find a way to fill it.”  John grinned and stood up, taking Sherlock’s hand and letting himself be led from the kitchen.

“Don’t mind me, then!” Irene called, smirking.

“Don’t worry, we don’t,” Sherlock said, pulling John up the stairs.

 

\----

 

Sherlock picked up the phone and grimaced at it.  If he let it go to voicemail, she’d just call again.  “What do you want, Mother?”

“Oh, Sherlock – I just had to ring you.  Your aunt Prudence hasn’t received her wedding invitation.’

“For the very logical reason that we didn’t send her one.”

“What?  How could you not invite Aunt Prudence?”

“Possibly because I haven’t spoken to her since I was eighteen and she’s never shown a single sign of giving even the tiniest shit about me.”

“I will simply never hear the end of it if she isn’t invited.”

“And how, exactly, is that my problem?”

“Don’t sass me, young man!  This is a family affair!”

“No.  It is, as I have been forced to endlessly repeat, my wedding and John’s.  It is not about anyone else, including Aunt Prudence.  Scratch that, especially Aunt Prudence.  We will choose who we’d like there.  You make the cut.  Aunt Prudence does not.”

“She’s called me four times.”

“Tell her to bugger off.”

“I cannot speak like that to Aunt Prudence!”

“You don’t even _like_ her.  You only continue to talk to her because she’s got Grandmother Vernet’s silver and you’ve been trying to weasel it out of her ever since Father died.”

“That isn’t the point!”

“I’m afraid Grandmother’s silver isn’t sufficient cause for me to invite that shriveled-up old crone to my wedding.  She doesn’t even want to come, she just wants everyone to bow and scrape to her.  I won’t do it, and I won’t drag John into the toff nightmare that is our extended family.”

He heard her sigh.  “I suppose, if your mind is made up.”

Sherlock smirked.  Her tone was faux-severe in a way that let him know he’d just given her the out she’d been looking for.  “It is.  And you may now go back and tell Aunt Prudence that you’re just dying for her to come to the wedding but that I’m being completely unreasonable and refusing to invite her.  Please, feel free to malign my character, I don’t give a toss.  I’m happy to be the villain.  Perhaps she’ll even feel sorry for you, having such a heartless, uncaring son, and be that much closer to giving you the silver, hmmm?”

“Oh, Sherlock.  Anyone would think me a money-grubbing thief with how you talk.  Now, where is my charming son-in-law?  Put him on the phone.”

“He’s not here just now.  I do expect him directly.  Would you like to wait?  He’ll not give you a different answer about Aunt Prudence, though.”

“Oh, that’s all right.  Give him my love.”  She hesitated.  “So…it’s to be just myself and Mycroft representing our family, then?”

“Correct.  Two whole days during which you will not have to concern yourself with impressing, coddling, or flattering anyone at all.”

She chuckled.  “When you put it like that, perhaps it isn’t so bad.”

“Goodbye, Mother.”

“Goodbye, darling.”

Sherlock hung up just as he heard the door into the garage open and shut again.  “Sherlock?” he heard John call.

“I’m in the lounge,” he called back.

John came in, his messenger bag across his chest.  He leaned over and kissed Sherlock soundly on the mouth.  “Felt good about that one.”

“Was that for the Scorsese film?”

“Yes.”

“Who else is up for the role?”

“Ed Norton tested for it.  Christoph, I think, and I heard that they’re seeing Peter, too.  I don’t know how good my chances are.  It’s encouraging that they even gave me a shot.”

“Gave you a shot?  You’re the reigning Oscar winner.  Stop thinking of yourself as some sort of charity case.”

“It’s a very old habit that I’m happy to try and break.”

Sherlock smiled as John flopped down next to him.  “You seem – chipper.”

“Six weeks from today I will be on a plane with you heading to our house to get married.  I’m choosing to focus on that.”

“Quite right.”

“God, I miss England.  After Tesla wraps, let’s go home for a few months.  Spend some time in London, perhaps?”

“Holidays in London.  I suppose.”

John scooted a bit closer and slid his hand down Sherlock’s thigh.  Sherlock took the hint and put his arm around John’s shoulders, pulling him against his side.  “Harry’s been talking to the Findleys.  They’re very keen to do some improvements to the house.  I told them to go ahead.”

“What?  What sorts of improvements?”

“Some landscaping in the garden, upgrade the appliances in the kitchen.  The upstairs guest bedrooms need new windows.  Nothing drastic, there isn’t time.”

“Might have consulted me,” Sherlock grumbled.

“Do you really have a strong opinion about new double-glazed windows?  I know you don’t want to be bothered with such things.  Besides, I do believe it is my house, too.”

“My mother just called, upset, as I predicted, about Aunt Prudence.  She’ll probably set on Mycroft now, try to get him to bring a date.”  He looked down at John’s blank face.  “You’re trying to imagine someone who’d date my brother, aren’t you?”

“I’m not having much luck.”

“He does see women socially, now and again.  Mycroft’s getting to the point where having a visible partner benefits his image, so occasionally he conjures one out of thin air for a few weeks.  There’s usually something in it for her, too.  His influence for her tenure or some such.”

John shuddered.  “I can’t imagine embarking on a relationship for such – mercenary reasons.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  There are worse reasons to embark on a relationship.”

“I suppose not everyone can be like us, and get together because of raw sexual chemistry,” John said, grinning.

“Hilarious, I’m sure.”

“Who’s joking?  I wanted a piece of that fantastic arse of yours the first day I met you.”

“If you’re going to make fun, please do it out of my hearing,” Sherlock groused, but he knew he couldn’t quite keep the amusement off his face and John wasn’t fooled.

“There is no fun being made.  That imperious, holier-than-thou attitude when you condescended to screen test with me was such a turn-on.”

“You certainly hid your arousal effectively.” Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “It’s good to see you smiling, John.”

John sobered.  “Have I really been so gloomy lately?”

“Not to the rest of the world.  I’m sure no one else has noticed anything amiss, but I know you.”

John sat up and faced him, reaching out to twine their fingers together.  “Yes, you do.  I’m sorry if I haven’t been myself.”

“There’s no need to apologize.  I know how much stress you’ve been under.”

“But this is supposed to be the happiest time of our lives.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Such fantasies only serve to put undue pressure on everyone involved.  There is no ‘supposed to be,’ there is only what is.  The film industry’s stubborn inability to recognize your value and treat you accordingly is just as legitimate a part of your life as is our wedding.  If you’re under stress, you ought to be able to show it, at least around me.”

John nodded.  “Sometimes having an overly rational partner has its perks.”

“Oh, my.  Mind saying that again?  I really ought to get it on tape,” Sherlock said, smirking.

“On tape?” John said, waggling his eyebrows.

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “For the hundredth time, the answer is no.  Have we learned nothing from Paris Hilton, John?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The triumphant return of Meta Notes!
> 
> 1\. "The Alienist" is a 1994 novel by Caleb Carr that is a long-drooled-over but so-far-unproduced film adaptation. It's about a group of investigators from police to journalists to a street kid investigating a serial killer case in 1896 Manhattan. The title refers to an antiquated term for a psychologist; the title character, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, is what we would today probably call a forensic psychologist. It's fantastic.
> 
> 2\. Nancy Oliver was a writer and co-producer of "Six Feet Under" and she also wrote "Lars and the Real Girl."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to my beta, roane72 and mazarin221b, and to mydwynter for some smut pep talks, although he advocated for sex acts involving John's Oscar and I was sorry to disappoint him.

John woke up and stretched; the light coming in the windows told him it was still early, probably before seven.  He turned over to find Sherlock sitting up in bed, reading something on his tablet.  “It’s early, go back to sleep,” Sherlock murmured, with a quick glance at John’s face.

“Mmm,” John hummed.  He cuddled up close to Sherlock’s side, sliding one arm and one leg across him.  Sherlock shifted in the bed to accommodate him; he put his tablet aside, then settled back with a kiss to John’s forehead.  “How long’ve you been up?”

“Didn’t sleep.”

“Not again.”

“I slept the night before last.”

“For three hours.  You’re just going to fall over one of these days.”

“I’ve got a lot of research to do.  Physics, history, Victorian manners and customs…did you know that in the Victorian area, pink was the accepted color for male children and blue was for females?”

“I did know that, actually.  Dunno how that relates to Tesla.”

“It doesn’t.  I keep getting sidetracked onto interesting tangents.” John pressed in tighter and kissed Sherlock’s neck.  Sherlock pulled him close with a sigh.  “Sally texted to remind me that I ought to ask if you’ve thought about where you’d like to go on honeymoon.”

“Are we even going to be able to have one?  We’ll barely have any time at all before you have to leave for Prague.”  John’s stomach twisted just saying the words.

“I’ll only be away for two months.  Insignificant, on a geologic scale.”  His tone was carefully nonchalant.

“People don’t live on geologic timescales.”

“Merely offering some perspective.”

“Do you realize that the longest we’ve been apart since last fall is three days?”

“I do.”

“I keep thinking about the last day of our shoot, when we said goodbye on the street.  I wanted to grab you and snog you and confess everything.  But instead I had to stand there and watch you leave.”

“Being the one leaving was equally difficult.”

“I can’t imagine leaving you again like that.  Remembering it now, with all that’s happened since – I feel a bit sick thinking of it.”

“It was a very long summer.”

“Can you believe it was less than a year ago?”

“It has been quite a year, hasn’t it?”

John didn’t answer.  An idea was forming in his head, but he was almost afraid to voice it.  “Sherlock…what if…”  He hesitated.

“What if what?”

“What if  I came with you?”  There, it was out.

“To Prague?”  Sherlock twisted a bit to look down into John’s face.  “Do you want to?”

“I don’t want to be away from you.  And it’s not as if I have anything to do here,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“That situation won’t be helped by you coming to Prague for two months.”

“But I won’t have to deal with it in an empty house.”

John felt Sherlock shifting in his arms and knew he was pondering the right way to express himself.  “John…I am not looking forward to being apart either, but…I don’t know if…I’m not sure I can…”

John’s heart sank.  That was clear enough.  He sighed, then rolled away, pulling the covers up around his shoulders.  “No, it was a stupid idea anyway.”

“It isn’t that I wouldn’t want you there…”

“No?  That’s what it sounds like.”

“You know how I am when I’m working.  It was different on 'To a Stranger', we were working _together_ , you were part of it.  You wouldn’t be part of it in Prague, and I’d never be around, and when I was I’d be distracted, you’d only grow frustrated with me…”

“I get it.  It’s fine.”

John heard Sherlock puff air through his teeth, something he did when he was frustrated.  “It is clearly not fine.  Don’t say that it is just to end the discussion.”

“What if I want to end the discussion?”

“I don’t!  That is to say, I do, but if it ends like this you will only fester and sulk for days and I’d rather have it out now.”

Anger sparked in John’s belly and he flipped back over.  “Well, your preferences aren’t my problem.  I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“Shall we make an appointment? Shall I have Harry and Sally coordinate our schedules and find a good time for us to fight about this?”

“Oh, fantastic.  Sarcasm always puts things to rights, doesn’t it?  You know what?  Sod this, just…sod all of it.”  He started to climb out of bed, but Sherlock’s hand clamped around his wrist and held him there.

“John.  Look at me.”

John grit his teeth.  He just wanted to go hide in a cave and have a pout, but that wouldn’t help, and that beseeching note in Sherlock’s voice was his undoing every time.  He looked at him, sitting up in bed with his curls mussed around his head and a raw expression in his eyes.  “What?”

“I dread us being apart just as much as you do.  I’ll be miserable.  But having you there would not be good for either of us.  I wouldn’t be able to work as I need to, and you wouldn’t be able to pursue projects as you must.  You would be bored and would soon feel resentful and ill-used.  Tell me I’m wrong.”

He was tempted, just to spite him, but he couldn’t.  “No, you’re probably not wrong.”

“I develop tunnel vision while I am working on location.  I won’t be interested in conversation or recreation or even sex.  I’d really rather you not be around me when I’m in that frame of mind, lest you start questioning your choice of spouse.”

John sagged, then slid under the covers again.  “You’re right.  I just…I’ve got nothing right now, Sherlock.  No work.  No prospects.  Nothing.  Who am I if I’m not acting?  What’s the point of me, just me?  You’re all I’ve got.  And the thought of you not being here for two months, and me here doing nothing but taking up space…”

“Self-pity doesn’t become you.  This isn’t like you.  Stop it immediately.”

“I don’t have an off switch!”

“I refuse to listen to you dismiss yourself as insignificant.  I can’t believe that you really mean it.  You’re one of the most centered people I’ve ever met.  After nearly a decade of thankless work in films that gave you absolutely no validation save the financial, you still marched into that screen test with the wherewithal to shake my preconceptions in five minutes, and within two weeks of knowing you, you’d somehow made yourself into the most important person in my life, a task failed at by all who had previously attempted it.  So don’t expect me to believe that now, having gotten the ultimate validation, six weeks without a new project is enough to break you.  It’s simply not possible.”  He nodded, as if to put a capper on that little speech.

“Everything you say is perfectly logical.”

“As always.”

“What you’re not understanding is that it doesn’t matter if it’s logical.  I wish it were that simple.  You’re expecting me to make some kind of cost/benefit analysis and just decide that it’s not reasonable to feel however I feel.  Having you tell me that it’s ‘simply not possible’ is not helpful.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what would be helpful, then.”

John sighed.  “I know you’re trying to make me feel better.”

“Trying and failing, apparently.”

“Honestly?  Knowing that you believe in me is...good.  Yeah, really good.”

“You’re the only thing in the world I do believe in, John.”

John sighed.  “I don’t know whether to punch you or snog you.”

“May I cast my vote for ‘snog?’”

He pulled Sherlock down and kissed him.  “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  Nothing’s ever hit me like this before.  Why is this different?”

“Because you’ve shown your hand.  You knew that wasn’t the real you in those rom-coms.  You could laugh off bad films and not getting any respect, because in your heart you knew you had talent, and you _could_ make good films if you chose.  Now you have, and have had it acknowledged and rewarded.  You’ve also let yourself be seen personally in a way you never had.  For the first time in your career, you’re being judged on who you really are, as an actor and as a man.  Of course you’re feeling more exposed.”

“Christ, when did you get so smart about people?”

“I always have been.  I’ve just never applied it to someone that I know so intimately, nor had so much data from which to draw conclusions.”  Sherlock was studying John’s face.  “Have I just made it worse?”

“I honestly don’t know.  In a way I’m proud to be judged based on who I really am, but on the other hand – the judgment doesn’t seem to be coming back in my favor.  That’s a harsh reality to face.”

Sherlock drew him close, tucking John’s head into the crook of his neck.  John relaxed against him, wrapping himself around Sherlock’s body.  “It’s understandable that you’d feel – discouraged.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel so myself, on your behalf.  But you are worthwhile, John.  You are important.  With or without me, with or without work.”  He went very still, drawing himself in and John along with.  “I love you.  Down to my very core,” he said, quietly.  “And it is my privilege that you allow me to do so.”

John shivered a little.  Sherlock took those words seriously and did not say them off-handedly.   John did well if he heard them more than once in a week.  “That’s all I really need.”  He hugged Sherlock tightly, pressing kisses to his jaw.  “But I’d still like a job,” he added.

Sherlock chuckled and rolled John onto his back.  “I think I might have a job for you,” he murmured in John’s ear, bucking their hips together.

John groaned, half at the bad joke and half in arousal.  “That was the worst segue into sex you’ve ever attempted.”

“It was effective, wasn’t it?” Sherlock said, kissing John’s neck.

“You don’t have to try very hard to get me to want to have sex with you,” John said, reaching between them to grasp Sherlock’s erection.  “Fuck, just watching you walk across a _room_ makes me want to have sex with you.”

Sherlock slid off him and lay on his stomach, tilting his hips up and spreading his legs.  “Then get to work,” he growled, looking up at John from under his lashes.

A bolt of lust shot up John’s spine.  He whipped off his pants, scrambled to his knees and straddled Sherlock’s thighs, his cock bumping against that perfect arse.  Sherlock writhed against the sheets, the muscles in his back flexing.  John ran his hands up and down the miles of smooth, pale skin laid out before him, watching Sherlock’s chest expand and contract with his breath.  He bent low and kissed the nape of his neck; a shiver ran over Sherlock’s body.  “You want this?” he murmured, letting his cock slip down between Sherlock’s legs.

“Yes,” Sherlock groaned.

“Ask me for it.”

“Fuck, John…”

“Use your words,” John whispered in his ear, tipping a shallow thrust against him.  Sherlock made a guttural, choking noise and pressed his face into his pillow.  “Tell me what you want.”  He set his teeth into Sherlock’s shoulder and pressed a shallow bitemark into his skin.

“Want you.  To get _in_ me.”  Sherlock bucked his hips up, pressing back against John’s cock.

John kissed the mark he’d just made and reached into the nightstand for the lube.  “Tell me how you want me,” he said, straightening up.  He slid lubed fingers into Sherlock, watching the tidal motions of the body beneath him.  The bite on Sherlock’s shoulder was reddening.  

“Hard,” Sherlock groaned.  

John’s self-control was shredding.  He slicked his cock quickly, slid his legs between Sherlock’s thighs and spread him wide.  He pressed into him a little, then braced on his hands, holding back for one more moment.  “All right?”

“Fuck, _do_ it,” Sherlock said.

John needed no further encouragement.  He thrust in hard, grunting through clenched teeth.  One of Sherlock’s hands flailed back and grabbed his hip, while the other reached out and gripped the sheets.  The sight of those long fingers white-knuckling the bedding shot right to John’s reptile brain.  He pulled back and surged forward again.  “God, you’re so tight,” he gasped.  “I want to ruin you, fucking _wreck_ you.  Fucking _mine_ , God…”

Sherlock was tilting his hips back to meet John’s thrusts.  He arched his neck, lifting his head; John could see him biting his lip.  He leaned forward and pulled Sherlock’s face around so he could kiss him.  Sherlock kissed back, messy and rough, bringing his hand up from John’s hip to the back of his head.  Whispered words snuck out between Sherlock’s gasps and groans, oaths and curses and John’s name.  His head fell back down to the pillow and he had both hands gripped in the sheets now, his whole body spread and wide open for John.

“Oh Christ...Sherlock…wanna come all over you.”

Sherlock craned his neck around to look at John over his shoulder.  “Come on my face,” he said, his voice rumbling in the deepest register he had, the one that was hardwired right to John’s cock.

John sucked in a sharp breath, the words pushing him closer to the edge.  He pulled out, grabbed Sherlock and flipped him over, moving to kneel astride his chest.  John fisted his cock fast and hard, Sherlock’s hands reaching between his legs to stroke his balls.  “Jesus, fuck...oh god, baby…”  

“Do it,” Sherlock said, staring right into John’s face.

John shouted as orgasm ripped through him.  It felt like it started at his toes.  He kept hold of his cock as it pulsed come onto Sherlock’s neck, his lips and cheekbones.  Primal triumph surged in him, pushing his orgasm higher.  He was dimly aware that Sherlock was finishing himself off with one hand; just as John was coming down, he was treated to the sight of Sherlock’s lips, decorated with John’s semen, parting in a cry as Sherlock climaxed.  His neck arched and he groaned; John felt Sherlock’s come on his own arse.  “Oh, fuck me, that is gorgeous,” John breathed, touching the streaks on Sherlock’s neck.  “God, I love watching you come.”

Sherlock grabbed him and yanked him down into a kiss, shoving his tongue into John’s mouth.  He tasted his own come on Sherlock’s lips and felt Sherlock’s on himself.  He ground down against him, feeling filthy and sweaty and sated.  Sherlock wrapped his arms around him, practically purring in contentment.

“Jesus, that was good,” John gasped, listening to his heart pound.  “How’d you know I wanted to come on your face?”

“You get off on marking me, always have.  It isn’t a particular kink of mine but I don’t mind.  You should just ask.”

“I know it isn’t a particular kink of yours.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.”  He lifted a finger and swiped a bead of come out of his eyebrow.  “I hear it’s good for the skin.”

 

* * *

 

Sally let herself in.  “Oi, tart!”

“Kitchen!”

Sally got out her laptop and phone and went to the sunny kitchen table, where Harry was already installed with her own.  “Finally, some peace and quiet around here.”

“She says, as if this were our house and not my brother’s and your boss’s.”

“The nerve of those wankers, wanting to hang out in their own house.  Don’t they know we have work to do?  They’re really very much in the way.”

“If only they could just send checks from the ether and not bother us,” Harry said, winking at her.

“The ideal employers.  Where did they get themselves off to, anyway?”

“Maggie and Peter are in town, they’re having dinner at their place.”

Sally threw her head back and laughed.  “I love it when Sherlock gets dragged to social gatherings that involve children.  He bitches and whinges about it but then ends up ignoring the adults to play Lego and comes home wanting me to buy him some.”

“I have to call the florist today.  Are we having boutonnieres or not?”

“No.  Just the vases for the house and some pots for the garden.  The Findleys are putting in that order.”

“John wants a corsage for our mum.  Should I get one for Sherlock’s?”

“Might as well.”

“The Findleys want to know who’s staying at the house.  It’s just John and Sherlock, Mycroft, and Mrs. Holmes, right?”

“Far as I know.  All your lot are driving down for the day, right?”

“Right.  Rachel and Daniel have their own place in London, so do Paul and Jenny, so they’ll drive down, too.  I booked a room locally for Sarah and Anthea, and one for Molly and her plus-one.  Irene and Mike and Greg sorted themselves out.  That’s everyone, I think.”

Sally frowned.  “Wait…Harry, where the hell are we staying?”

Harry blinked.  “Bugger,” she said.

Sally burst out laughing.  “Looks like we kip on the lounge rug, eh?”

“I knew I’d forgotten about someone.  It’d be a pain in the arse for us to stay in the city.  A lot of bloody driving.”

“We could just stay with the Findleys.  They only live a mile or so down the road, they’ve got loads of space.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.  I’ve done it before, when Sherlock was at the house and we were doing a lot of work.”

Harry frowned.  “What are they like?  Are they a dotty old couple who’ll tut at me over my tattoos?”

Sally laughed.  “Hardly.  You’ll love them.”  Having Harry meet the Findleys would be worth the whole mess.

She watched Harry working away on her laptop, a little crease between her eyebrows as she concentrated on whatever she was doing, and wondered if Harry was aware how much she looked like John at moments like this.  She and Harry had grown very close in the past months of working together.  The two of them had been rather thrown together by their respective boss’s love affair, and it could have been a disaster, but it turned out there was at least one other woman in the world with no time for the Cult of Nice.  

“You know they’re both going to be hellish to deal with while Sherlock’s on location.  Miserable and lonely and irritable,” Harry said.

Sally nodded.  “You’ll get the worse of it, I think.  Sherlock sort of goes into the zone on location.  He won’t let himself think about John too much.”

“Nice way to start a marriage, by being thousands of miles apart for two months.”

“Nature of the beast.”  Sally took a deep breath.  “Let’s check the travel arrangements, eh?  Then Sherlock asked me to look for a realtor to sell his New York flat.”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock was almost finished with the very thick biography of Queen Victoria he’d been sporadically reading for a month.  Today was to have been the last push through to the end.  One quiet afternoon with his book, one final respite before it was time to board planes and set up housekeeping in Sussex and endure the last rush of wedding preparations.

Instead, he sat with the book open on his lap, distracted and continually losing his place, because John was skittering around the house like one of those robotic vacuum cleaners that ran into things, changed direction and headed off again.

“John,” he said, the fourth time John hurried through.  He didn’t hear him.  Sherlock waited.  Soon enough, he careened past again.  “John!”

This time he stopped, looking irritated.  “What?”

“I do wish you’d sit down.  Or at least stop stomping around the house like a mad majorette.”

“I’ve got a million things to do, and I’d think you would, too!  How are you just sitting there, reading?”

“What are these ‘things’ you think I have to do?  I’ve packed my overnight bag, the rest of our clothes have already been sent to the house, my emails are being forwarded to Irene, as are yours, the house has been cleaned, and Harry’s coming for us at three.  My only task now is not to throttle you where you stand between now and then, a task you are not making easier.”

“I can’t seem to focus on anything,” John admitted.  “I keeping putting one thing in my overnight bag and then remembering something else I need to check on.  Repeat _ad nauseum_.”

Sherlock marked his place and put the book aside.  “Come here,” he said, patting the couch at his side.  John sighed, but he came over and sat down.  Sherlock pulled one of John’s legs across his lap, both out of a desire to touch him and so John couldn’t spring up and hurry away on another unnamed but urgent errand.  He slid one hand under the cuff of John’s jeans and started massaging his ankle.  John immediately relaxed a little and his face lost some of its nervous tension.

“That’s playing dirty,” John said.

“I’m merely employing my extensive knowledge of your body and its responses to get what I want.”

“Yes.  We call that ‘playing dirty.’”

“You don’t seem to object.”  Sherlock’s fingers moved down to John’s instep.

John slid down on the couch until he was lying on his back, a deep sigh escaping him.  “I can’t stay mad at you, you fucking wanker.”

“It is not like you to be so – manic.”

“I’ve never gotten married before.  My apologies if my behavior’s confounded your set of parameters for How John Is.”

“Snippy.”

“Impatient.”

“Would it help for me to reassure you – again – that everything’s being very capably handled by our two assistants?”

John sighed.  “I know.”

“Or that you will be just as reachable there as here, should any projects or job offers come your way?”

John snorted.  “The odds of that happening are circling the drain.”  He put a hand over his eyes.  “I’m seriously considering accepting Rob’s offer.”

“No.  You can’t.”

“I don’t _want_ to.  I just need something.  Anything.  Get me back in front of audiences again.”

“If it were five years from now and you’d had several lead roles in the interim, I’d say go ahead.  But at this stage, I wouldn’t advise it.  You know I’m right.”

“Yes, I know.”  John dropped his hand, reached out and grasped Sherlock’s.  “It isn’t just because I’m afraid of not working.  I’ve got to have work while you’re gone, or else I’ll go crazy with missing you.  I’m so envious of your project.  Not just the project itself, but you’ll be in Prague, where nothing will remind you of me, doing work that’ll keep you occupied.  I’ll be here, in our house, looking at our things, sleeping alone in our bed, with nothing to do but dwell on it.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “I suggest that instead of dwelling on it now, you think of the fact that we’ve got three weeks alone together in Sussex, with no obligations.”

A slow  smile spread across John’s face.  “That is a much more pleasant topic.”  He was quiet for a moment.  “I thought we might take a trip before the wedding, since we’ll have precious little time after and we’ll have several weeks to kill.”

Sherlock nodded.  “Scotland, perhaps.  Or Iceland.”

John just looked at him, his face dead serious.  “Anywhere.  I’d go anywhere on this earth with you.”

Sherlock grinned, released John’s foot and crawled over his body, settling his hips between John’s legs, which lifted and spread to wrap around him.  Sherlock made a shallow thrust against him; John bit his lip and reached around to cup Sherlock’s arse.  He smiled, but then it faded.  “What is it?” Sherlock asked.

John sighed.  “Now and then I get this urge to wrap myself around you, to stop you from flying away and escaping.  Then I remember that I don’t have to do that.”  He shrugged.  “It catches me off-guard, this mad idea that I get to keep you, forever.  That I’ll see you gray-haired and distinguished, you will see me thick in the middle, and someday we will just be a couple of white-haired old golems, playing grandfathers and patriarchs and wizards, holding hands as we shuffle up the red carpet.  Some reporter will write our story, and there’ll be a whole paragraph about how groundbreaking it was when we came out, and isn’t that quaint that it used to be such a great stonking deal.”  John lifted a finger and traced Sherlock’s eyebrow, his touch delicate.  “I had a narrow escape, you know.  From what my life would have been if I’d never met you.  The increasingly meaningless films.  Someday second-rate telefilms.  Maybe down to straight to video.  Friends pitying me, directors ignoring me.  Dating women I don’t give a toss about, eventually marrying one just to have something to do and some company.”

“You give yourself too little credit, as always.  Your career would have rebounded.”

“Maybe so, but…”  John thought for a moment.  “It may sound dramatic, but meeting you was the watershed moment of my life.  Truly, it was.”

“You’re right.  It sounds dramatic.”

John swiped at his arm, grinning.  “Sod off.”

“You speak as though you’re the only one.  I’d have gone through life as the man I used to be had we never met, ignorant of what I was missing, of what I could have been.”  Sherlock blinked; the thought had unexpected potency.  “I’d never have known,” he said.  “That seems wrong.”

“What does?”

“That the universe would have allowed it.  That I wouldn’t have somehow sensed that a cosmic mistake had been made had we not met.”

“Good thing the universe doesn’t make mistakes,” John said.

Sherlock didn’t know what to say, so he just bent and kissed him, drawing it out.  John kissed back, his tongue touching Sherlock’s, sliding against his lips and into his mouth, hands tangling in Sherlock’s hair.  “Mmmm,” Sherlock said.  “Have I succeeded in distracting you from your mania?”

“Maybe,” John said, his hips moving in leisurely circles against Sherlock’s.  “I’ve got an idea, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Let’s get ourselves to Sussex and get married.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to my lovely betas, mazarin221b and roane72.
> 
> Author's disclaimer: beginning with this chapter there's description of the various minutiae that are involved in making one's relationship legal. I've researched the procedures in the UK for civil partnerships (I just refer to it as a marriage in the story for expediency) but it's hard to get a good feel for the boots-on-the-ground step-by-step procedures. So if I've gotten anything wrong, I apologize, and I did make a good faith effort to be as accurate as possible.

Sally had barely pulled into the drive before the door burst open and Gloria Findley shot out of it like a cannonball.  “Sally!” she cried, throwing her hands in the air.

“Dear God in heaven,” Harry muttered as they got out of the car.  Her mental image of a dotty countryside lady with rose bushes and knitting had been wildly inaccurate.  The woman was in patchwork and macramé, for crying out loud, and the gargantuan, sprawling house was all but invisible under all the foliage and ivy.

“Hello, luv,” Sally said, returning Gloria’s embrace.  Harry stared at the home’s cheerful disarray, a sharp contrast to the aggressive tidiness that the Findleys maintained at Sherlock and John’s house.  A weathervane with a giant painted fish on it perched on the rooftop, presiding over a garden strewn with statuary and brightly-colored pottery.  Sitting in the drive was a bright orange vintage Mini and a battered Morris Minor.  A turquoise bicycle with a woven basket on the front of it was leaning against the Mini.

“You must be Harry,” said Gloria, coming up to her.  To her relief, she didn’t try to hug her, just extended her hand.  Her nails were bitten to the quick.  Her silver hair was up in a neat bun and her earrings were little Monopoly pieces…the shoe in one ear and the wheelbarrow in the other.

“Yes, hello,” Harry said, shaking her hand.

“I’m Gloria Findley, it’s so nice to finally meet you.  Come in, come in.”

Harry and Sally brought their bags inside.  To Harry’s relief, the interior was eclectic, but very tidy.  A fluffy orange cat instantly appeared to wind around her ankles, as if this were his designated job when visitors arrived.  “Gus!  The girls are here!” Gloria shouted.

“Right, then!” came and answer from…somewhere.

“Everything all right?” Gloria said, motioning for them to leave their bags and come into the kitchen.  Tea had been laid out; Harry’s mouth watered, she’d not had much to eat since they’d left Los Angeles the previous afternoon.   _Oh thank God, she’s got clotted cream._

“So far,” Sally said.  “We left Sherlock and John in London, they’ll drive down tomorrow.  I didn’t see the point of us staying one night in the city.  They only stayed so John could see his family.”

“Quite right.” Gloria poured out tea for them.  She winked at Harry and pushed the scones toward her.  “I see you eyeing these, luv.”

“Oh Lord, you can’t get good clotted cream in the States,” Harry said, smearing her scone liberally.

“Well, we’re glad to have you.  It’ll be fun!”

“You are coming to the wedding, aren’t you?” Sally asked.

“Sherlock asked us, but I don’t know.  Is it proper, do you think?”

“Why on earth wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, we’re…you know.  His employees.”

“Don’t be daft,” Sally said.  “So are we.  And so are his agent and his manager, and they’re coming.”

Gloria looked relieved.  “We’d be very pleased to come.”

A door banged open somewhere and in came Gus Findley, all paint splotches and a tuft of white hair like a troll doll.  He wrapped one arm about Sally’s shoulders and smacked a kiss to her forehead.  “Ho there, Sally.  You must be Harry,” he said, grabbing her hand for a quick shake.  “Welcome.”  He plopped down at the table next to his wife and took a scone.

“How are the boys holding up?” Gloria asked.  “Are they nervous?”

“Just impatient.  I think they’d both like it over with as soon as possible.”

She shook her head.  “Part of me still can’t quite picture Sherlock married.”

“You haven’t met John yet, have you?”

“No, not yet.  I feel like I ought to have done, I’ve heard enough of him.  I’ve seen the photos of them that are in the house, and of course they’re all over the Internet.”

“You might have an easier time imagining Sherlock married once you see them together,” Sally said, smiling.

Gloria beamed.  “Mad for each other, are they?”

“Completely.  I wouldn’t have thought Sherlock had it in him to be so besotted.  And I have to say, it’s been good for him.  He’s a good deal less of a bastard since he met John.” Gloria flapped a hand, dismissing Sally’s characterization of Sherlock.  “He’s just his own man.  He always has been.  But I’m glad he’s found someone.”  She smiled and took Gus’s hand.  “Everyone needs someone.”

 

* * *

 

 

John dropped the bags inside the front door.  He tilted his head back and took a deep breath, eyes closed.  The smell of the house, a sort of mossy-tea-meadow aroma, was instantly calming – and he was overdue for some calm.

“Would you like a moment alone?” Sherlock murmured, his mouth right by John’s ear.  John could hear the smirk in his voice.

“I’m fine, thanks,” John said, elbowing him.  He picked up the bags and moved into the house.  Sherlock followed, lugging more bags and two laptop cases.  “Just very glad to be here.”  He and Sherlock had flown in the day before and had dinner with John’s siblings.  It had been a jolly gathering, although everyone had carefully avoided the still-unresolved topic of whether or not their parents would attend the wedding.  They’d been very late to bed and very early to rise for their drive here, but John had been so eager to reach the house that he didn’t care.

John hauled their bags upstairs, leaving Sherlock to put away the few groceries they’d brought from the city: Sherlock’s preferred brand of black tea, some wine, chocolate and a few loaves of bread from John’s favorite bakery.  He debated just leaving the unpacking, but it’d be just as tiresome later, so he took the time to put their clothes and personal items away. On his way downstairs, he stuck his head into the other two bedrooms.  Clearly the Findleys had taken their task seriously; both rooms sported new windows, new bedding, electric kettles and tea, cheerful plants and updated art on the walls.

When John came back down to the kitchen, Sherlock was pouring tea, but he had a blank look on his face that telegraphed trouble.  “What is it?” he asked.

“We were photographed in London last night.”

John’s heart sank.  “Really?  Where?  I didn’t see anyone.” His mind raced, trying to remember if they’d done anything that would look unfortunate in a paparazzi photograph.  As far as he could recall, they hadn’t so much as held hands.

“Nor did I.  I’m furious with myself.  I ought to have spotted them.”  He swung his laptop around to show John the photos.  Bracing himself, John sat down to have a look.  The unseen photographer had caught them walking to the grocery store, then emerging with carrier bags.  In one of them, John had been caught mid-laugh, looking up at Sherlock (whose head was turned away from the camera) as if he’d hung the moon.

“Well…these aren’t so bad.  We’re grocery shopping.  We look happy.  So what?  You don’t usually care about photographs like this.”

“It isn’t the content, it’s the…sneakiness.  The idea that we’re being stalked from the shadows is unsettling, to say the least.”

“Not arguing with that, but we knew this would happen.”

“It’s the timing that concerns me.”

“You think they’ll figure out we’re here to get married?”

“It isn’t that great a leap.”

“Well, we’re out of the city now.”

“That is by no means a guarantee of privacy.  It would be the work of no more than five minutes with public real-estate records to discover that you and I own this house, and once we file our notice next week, that too will be a matter of public record of our intention to marry here.”

John’s guts twisted at the thought of photographers haunting their wedding.  “Well, they can’t get anywhere that they could get a shot of the garden.”

“No, but they can invade Hailsham and harass visitors.  And I’m not entirely convinced that a determined photographer couldn’t manage to spy on our ceremony with a long enough lens.”

John ran a hand through his hair.  “What can we do?”

“Legally?  Not a thing.”

“That was a loaded response.”

“Mycroft has…connections.”

“We can’t do anything shady, Sherlock.  The last thing either of our careers needs is another scandal, or to get caught in some cock-up with photographers.”

“You’d prefer that photographs of our private wedding be splashed all over the Sun?” Sherlock said, an edge coming into his voice.

“Frankly, yes!  We’ve done all we can, and if someone manages to get a photo, then they get one.  You know how these things go.  Our best course of action is to do nothing.”

Sherlock sipped his tea, considering.  “We could…”

“No.”

“I am merely suggesting that…”

“We are not rescheduling the wedding.  Goddammit, Sherlock, worst case scenario they get photographs of the wedding.  It’s not worth it.”

“That is _not_ the worst case scenario!” Sherlock exclaimed.  “If photographers have weaseled out where we are and what we are doing, others could do the same, or worse yet, be led right to us by gossipmongers.  Have you forgotten that there are people in this world who wish us actual harm?  Have you forgotten Sydney?”

John went quiet.  “I thought you were just worried about our privacy.”

“I am first and foremost worried about our _safety_.”

“I won’t live like that.  And you wouldn’t want to, either.  Our plans are set.  We’ll not change them.  I won’t be cowed.”

Sherlock held his gaze.  “I never thought you would be.”  He stood up, took John’s face in his hands and kissed him deeply.  John kissed back, teasing Sherlock’s tongue with his own and running one hand up to his neck.  Sherlock moved his mouth across John’s jaw, beneath his ear, down onto his neck.  John shivered, his fingers gripping Sherlock’s shirt.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered.  “Oh God, that’s good – fuck, we haven’t had sex in days.”

They’d barely gotten into the bedroom before Sherlock was pulling at John’s shirt, turning him around and sliding his hands around his back.  John stood on tiptoe and sealed his mouth over Sherlock’s, wrapping his arms around his shoulders.  He felt Sherlock’s hands slide down and palm his arse as he was walked back to the bed.  He rather ungracefully clambered onto the duvet and pulled Sherlock with him, both of them making bad jobs of shedding clothing while kissing.  They wound up sprawled across the bed, John in just his open shirt and Sherlock barechested with his trousers and pants shoved down his hips.  John handed him the tube from the bedside table, and after the least preparation they could get away with, Sherlock surged forward and into his body.  John’s back arched and his hips tilted to accept him, his fingers clawing at Sherlock’s shoulders.  “Ah yes, Christ,” he choked.

“John,” Sherlock groaned into his shoulder.  “Too long this time.”

“Yes,” John said.  He pulled Sherlock’s head up and looked into his eyes.  “Make up for it,” he said, a hint of a growl underneath his words.

Sherlock bent close, taking his breath from John’s mouth.  “Tell me how you want it.”

John bit at Sherlock’s lips, his hips making frustrated arcs.  “ _Now_ ,” he said.

He felt Sherlock grin against his mouth, then his hands pinned John’s hips down.  “As you wish,” he purred.

 

* * *

 

 

It was twenty minutes’ drive to Eastbourne, and John spent the entirety of it gnawing on his fingernails.

“Stop that.”

“I can’t help it, I’m nervous.  Aren’t you nervous?  You’re the one who was so paranoid about security.”

“I am, but this is unavoidable.  It’s useless to be anxious about something we can’t escape.  Irene’s arranged for us to submit our notice in private, we won’t have to pass through the public area of the registry office.  We won’t be recognized.”

“No, but our names will be made public as having given notice of our intention to marry.”

“That was always going to be true.” Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.  “Are you sure that our public exposure is your only source of anxiety?”

“What else would it be?”

“Well, you are about to announce your intention to permanently bind yourself to one of the most notoriously difficult men in the world.”

John laughed.  “You think you’re so scary, don’t you?  You don’t fool me.  I know that beneath that flinty exterior lies a heart of pure marshmallow.”

“I will turn this car right around!” Sherlock exclaimed, but his eyes were twinkling.  “Marshmallow, indeed.”

John was just smiling at him in that way he had that made Sherlock feel a hundred feet tall, with the strength of ten men.  “You can be very sweet when you want to be.”

Sherlock grunted.  “I can fake it when required.”

“You don’t fake it with me.”

“You are the exception to everything, as if you weren’t already aware of that.”

“Don’t let’s get off the subject.  You think I’m nervous about marrying you?  I’m not.”

“If you say so.”

“No, don’t give me that.  I’m telling you the truth.  Are   _you_ nervous?”

“Only that some catastrophe will befall us before the date and derail the whole thing.”

“That’s not going to happen.  I won’t allow it.”

“Well, then.  Academy Award Winner John Watson has spoken, and the universe must fall into line.”

“Just so,” John said, grinning.

Sherlock glanced at him.  “You seem less nervous now.”

He sighed.  “I suppose this will go how it goes, and there’s no point worrying.”

“Good, because here we are,” he said, taking their exit.

John pulled out his phone and called the number he’d been given by Harry.  “Hello, yes.  This is John Watson, is this…yes, of course.  We’re just getting off the motorway now.  About five minutes?  All right, thank you.  We’re much obliged.”  He hung up.  “He said there’d be someone waiting at the gate to let us in to the staff parking.”

“Grand.”  Sherlock followed his GPS to the registry office, which was a large, pleasing red brick building with a bell tower.  He drove around to the staff entrance, where there was indeed someone waiting to open the security gate for them.  He parked as near the entrance as he could, pleased at the total lack of people in the vicinity.

They got out and went in the staff entrance.  A twentyish woman and a man about ten years her senior were waiting there, both of them with overly-wide “hey celebrities” smiles of the sort Sherlock had grown accustomed to.  “Mr. Watson, Mr. Holmes,” the man said, practically leaping forward to shake their hands.  “Byron Standish, so pleased to meet you.”

“Yes, hello, Mr. Standish,” John said.  Sherlock just nodded.

“We’ve got everything ready for you.  There’s just some paperwork and you can be on your way.”

“Thank you.  We really appreciate your accommodating our…special request.”

Standish led them to his own office, the as-yet-unidentified woman trailing along behind.  There were papers laid out on the desk, all the relevant details already filled in, needing only their signatures.  “Did you gentlemen bring your paperwork?” Standish asked.

John handed him a folder containing their passports and birth certificates.  Standish withdrew the documents and checked everything over.  “And you’ll be registering at the Hailsham city clerk’s office?”

“Correct,” Sherlock said, swallowing his impatience with all this…bureaucracy.  These machinations, pointless and overly complicated as they were, had to take place to make John his husband, so he refrained from comment.

“Once the notice is posted, you’ll have to wait…”

“Fifteen days, yes, we’re aware of that.”  He didn’t quite manage to keep the snip from his tone, earning him a sidelong glance and a throat-clearing from John.

Standish glanced from him to John and back again, then held out a pen.  “Just sign here, then, and you’ll be all sorted.”

John took the pen, met Sherlock’s eyes briefly with a smile, then bent and scrawled his name on the form.  He straightened up and handed the pen to Sherlock.  He signed.  “Well.  That certainly was worth driving all the way down here,” he muttered.

John sighed.  “Sherlock,” he began, the warning clear.

“By which I mean thank you, Mr. Standish, for your attention to our privacy concerns.”

“Can’t keep the notice private, I’m afraid,” Standish said.  “That would defeat the whole purpose.  But the list of couples who’ve given notice is only posted here at the office.  I can tell you that the number of people who come in to look at it is vanishingly small.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if a resourceful journalist made an appearance,” Sherlock said.

Standish looked a bit alarmed at the idea of his register office being invaded by the press.  “What…is there something I should do if that happens?”

“No.  It’s a free country and we have no control over the press.  Let it go.  All we can do is hope for accidental anonymity.”

“Well…allow me to offer my congratulations and best wishes,” Standish said.  Sherlock could tell by his delivery that he’d spent quite a bit of time practicing that line.  Probably in front of a mirror.

John beamed and shook Standish’s hand again.  “Ta, very much.”

 

* * *

 

 

They arrived back to the house without incident, to John’s relief.  He couldn’t shake that feeling that a calamity would descend upon them at any moment, and no matter how much caution they exercised, it would be insufficient to protect them.  Sherlock had been uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back; John wondered if he was worrying about the paparazzi showing up.

All seemed peaceful when they walked in.  No voicemails, no Harry or Sally waiting in the living room to spring some horrible news on them.

He was just starting to relax when his phone rang.  He froze and looked up, meeting Sherlock’s eyes -- he saw there the same alarmist train of thought that he’d been riding all day.  He pulled out the phone.  “Oh God, it’s my mother.”  This was a relief on one hand, but on the other, he’d almost rather deal with reporters.

“Then you’d better answer it,” Sherlock said, mildly.

John took a deep breath.  “Hello, Mum.”

“Oh!  John.  I didn’t…oh.”

“ _You_ called _me_ , Mother.  Were you hoping I wouldn’t answer?”

“I wasn’t sure…you’re so busy all the time.”

“Well, I’m not busy just now.  What can I do for you?” _Besides abandon my husband-to-be and get a girlfriend_ , he added in his head.

“I wanted to call and tell you that…well…”  She hesitated.  “Your father and I have decided to come to your…wedding.”

John sat down, taking a steadying breath.  “Have you, then?”

“If we’re still wanted.”

“Did Charlie put you up to this?”

She cleared her throat.  “Charlie made a case for it.  I suppose if you consider that ‘putting us up to it,’ then yes.”

“What case did he make that was so compelling?”

“He said we’ve been to all our other children’s weddings, and we’d be, as he put it, ‘ungrateful bastards’ if we missed yours.”  Her tone was like chipped ice.

John nodded.  “I see.  So you want to come to my wedding not out of any desire to be there, but so you won’t be seen as ungrateful bastards?”  Sherlock, across the room on a phone call of his own, shot John a look.

“Does it matter why?” his mother said, exasperation creeping in.

“Yes, I think it does.”

“Do you want us there, or don’t you?”

“I do.  But I want you to be happy to be there.”

“People don’t always get what they want.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Mum, do you think you can be at least happy that I’m happy?  Isn’t that supposed to be what every parent wants?”

“What do you want me to say, John?  What if you came to me and told me that you’d discovered that you could only be truly happy by…I don’t know, killing puppies?  Would you expect me to be happy about that, just because you were?”

John’s brain froze up for a full five seconds; he was nearly undone by the absurdity of that statement.  “Let me see if I have this right,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully.  “Did you just compare my completely legal relationship with a man I love deeply to _puppy slaughter_?”  Sherlock looked up from his phone call at that, his eyes wide with alarm.

Silence from the other end of the line for a moment.  “I suppose that wasn’t the best analogy.”

“Oh, you think so?”

John heard his mother sigh, one of her long-suffering “my children make my life so difficult” sighs.  “I am glad that you’re happy,” she said, sounding like the words were being dragged from her throat by a team of draft horses.  “I am not glad about what you are.  I can’t pretend to be.  But if this is how it must be, your father and I are willing to be there.”

“And I’m supposed to be grateful and thrilled that you’re condescending to attend and being so generous as to set aside your disgust and shame to come witness my depravity in person?” John said, his voice rising.

“Maybe we shouldn’t bother,” she snapped.

“Maybe you shouldn’t!”

John might have gone on, but suddenly the phone was snatched from his hands.  He gaped up at Sherlock, who shot him a severe “shush” expression and held the phone to his ear.  “Mrs. Watson?  Sherlock Holmes.  Am I to understand that you and Mr. Watson would like to attend the wedding?  Yes, never mind what he said.  Do you wish to attend, or not?  Good.  We’ll be pleased to see you there.  Yes, goodnight.”  He hung up and handed John his phone.

“You…wh…what the fuck was that?” John shouted, springing to his feet.

“Expediency.”

“Do you know what she said to me?”

“I got the gist of it from your end, yes.  It doesn’t matter.”

Anger was wiping John’s brain clean of clever responses.  “You presumptuous wanker!  Where the fuck do you get off?  They’re _my_ parents!”

“Precisely the problem.  I have the emotional detachment necessary to deal with them efficiently.  You get too emotional, it’s counterproductive.”

“And you’re just fine with them coming to the wedding and smearing their awfulness all over everything?”

“I’m not jumping for joy, no.  But we are leaving for Scotland in the morning, and if I had let you continue the conversation, it would have ended with your mother once again refusing to attend and you being angry about it, which would soon metamorphose into guilt, and our entire holiday would be spent with you in a black mood of remorse and anxiety.  Am I wrong?”

John opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking in vain for the flaw in that logic.  “I want to say yes just because you’re pissing me off, but I can’t.”

“I’ve always said you were a man of integrity.”

“So you told my mother to come to our wedding to spare yourself some awkward moments on our holiday?”

“No, although that is an auxiliary benefit.  I did it to spare you having to sacrifice your pride.  Obviously, your parents wish to make it clear to you that your feelings are secondary to theirs.  They tell you that they will come, but that they aren’t happy about it, thus forcing you to either refuse them, or swallow their bigotry and accept.  If you refuse, they are then in the position to be the wronged party.  If you accept, they have the pleasure of drawing the lion’s share of focus and attention away from you and onto their little drama.  You cannot win, so the least I can do is take the burden of choosing out of your hands.”

John watched as Sherlock casually went back to sorting the mail.  His irritation bled away, supplanted by relief that he hadn’t had to actually conclude that awful conversation.  Sherlock had taken it off his hands.  After a moment’s hesitation, he walked over and slid his arms around Sherlock’s waist from behind, pressing his cheek between his shoulderblades.  “Thanks,” he murmured.  “It’s nice to have…a teammate.”

“Is that not the job of a spouse?”

“You’d never know it to look at my parents.”

“I think we can safely scratch them off the list of marital role models.”

“Do we have other marital role models?”

Sherlock turned around in John’s arms.  “Inspirations, perhaps.  But you know, I rather prefer to envision us charting our own course.  You are you and I am me, and no one has ever been us.  It’s useless to model ourselves after people who are not us.  Their being them has no bearing upon us being...us.”

John grinned.  “That was both nonsensical and profound at the same time.”

“I confess I’m a bit deficient in the vocabulary to analyze this topic.”

“You’re doing fine.”  He stood on tiptoe and kissed him.  “Anyway, we are a ‘trailblazing power couple,’ are we not?  We might as well blaze our trail on our own.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “If I never see that phrase again, it will be too soon.”

“Oh, crumbs.  I had t-shirts made.”  John laughed at Sherlock’s expression.  “Would you wear one if I had?”

“I’d rather go out in...cargo shorts.”

John pouted out his lip a little and looked up at him, deploying his puppiest puppy-dog eyes.  It was his secret weapon.  “Not even... _just_ for me?”

Sherlock sighed.  “The list of things you wish me to wear in private is threatening to exceed the number of available evenings in our lifetime.”

“Oh, bollocks, there haven’t been…”  He cocked his head.  “Wait...you’re actually keeping a list, aren’t you?”

He frowned.  “Of course I am.  Why wouldn’t I?”

“You do realize that I was kidding about the Father Christmas costume?”

Sherlock blinked.  “One never knows.”

John’s mind was suddenly full of the image of Sherlock sashaying into the bedroom and striking a seductive pose, wearing a Father Christmas costume.  He burst out laughing.  “And you thought I’d be nervous about marrying a man who’s actually willing to wear a Father Christmas outfit during sex to make me happy.”

“I was hoping that I’d be able to get away with just wearing the hat,” Sherlock said, deadpan.  That set John off again.  He doubled over, gasping with laughter.   “Well...and possibly the boots,” Sherlock said.  John grabbed his arms for balance, his knees going a bit wobbly.  Sherlock had begun to chuckle, too, and the sound of their mingled laughter was one of John’s favorite things in the world.  It made everything else go away.  The press, his parents, his career -- none of it mattered if he could just stay here and laugh with Sherlock, forever.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: there will not be a chapter posted next week as I am going to be out of town all week. Next chapter up will be 4/10.

John had hoped that he and Sherlock might make it through their two-week Scottish getaway without fighting.  He ought to have known better.

On the third evening of their trip, John found himself sitting alone amidst all the postcard-perfect romantic ambiance because Sherlock was off working on his laptop.  Again.  He’d lobbied for the banishment of all electronic devices during their trip, which would be the only honeymoon they were likely to get for some time, but that suggestion had been shot down with such force that John hadn’t bothered to press the issue.

When they’d arrived at the lodge, they’d found the fire lit, quiet music playing and the pantry stocked with their favorite things.  They’d thrown together some food they could eat in the bedroom and retired there, barely unpacking before getting each other unclothed and between the sheets.  They had made love off and on all night, sleeping in an untidy pile of limbs and bedclothes, waking every few hours for another drowsy bout.  The next day they’d gone for an endless, meandering drive, talking about nothing or not talking at all, pausing by the road when the view was scenic, stopping for tea at a roadside pub.

That night had been the first time Sherlock got on his laptop.  John let it go.  If they were at home, he’d have work to do, too…but they weren’t at home, and this was supposed to be a holiday.  It irked him a little, but he didn’t want to be a nag about it. Sherlock had been willing enough to power down and come to bed.  And if John woke up in the middle of the night to find Sherlock curled on his side, facing away from him but betrayed by the telltale glow of his phone screen, well, that wasn’t really hurting anyone.

Except he’d gotten up from breakfast to go right to his laptop.  John’s suggestion that they drive into town had been met with reluctant acquiescence, and he’d been distracted for most of the day.

Dinner had been eaten, and now John was parked on the sofa with a glass of wine watching _Now, Voyager_ , which was one of Sherlock’s favorite movies.  His patience was wearing thin.  Finally, he paused the playback and got up.  Sherlock had set up camp in a small study off the kitchen.  “Are you going to be in here all night?  I thought surely Bette Davis would get you off that thing.  If I’m not enough of an inducement,” he muttered, as an afterthought.

Sherlock glanced at him.  “Just a bit longer.”

John grit his teeth.  “You said that an hour ago.  What are you doing, anyway?”

“Research.”

“With as much research as you’ve done, you ought to be ready to teach quantum physics.”

“Don’t exaggerate, John.  I’m merely acquiring a working knowledge of the principles.  In addition, there are cultural norms to research, dialect and idiom to familiarize myself with, details about Tesla’s life and writings to learn…”

“And you must do all this now, on our holiday.”

“I’ll not have a great deal of time to do so otherwise.”

“We’re supposed to be relaxing.”

“I’m very relaxed.  I find research tremendously centering.”  He peered up at John.  “You, on the other hand, do not appear at all relaxed, despite the one point five glasses of wine you’ve consumed.  So which of us is the problem here?”

“Don’t be a twat, Sherlock.  You know damned well what the problem is.  We’re supposed to be spending this time together.”

“Are we not together?”

“Oh, no, do not play that ‘I take everything literally and therefore it isn’t my fault you didn’t spell it out well enough’ card with me.  I’m on to you.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Sherlock said, his eyes going back to the screen.

John stalked over and closed the laptop lid, Sherlock yanking his fingers back at the last second.  “I’m not having this.  I have no intention of passing this time like flatmates at our separate pursuits.  I need…”  Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a lump in his throat.  Sherlock looked up at him, awareness coming into his eyes for the first time.  “I need this time with you, Sherlock.  After the wedding we’ll have a few days and then you’re off and I won’t see you for two months.  I don’t know what’s worse, that those months are coming up so fast or that you don’t seem to care enough to put work aside for two sodding weeks.”

Sherlock stared at the lid of the closed laptop, his nostrils flaring slightly.  “If you think that I don’t dread that separation as much as you do, you’re wrong,” he said, his voice subdued.

“Then why can’t you just…”

“Because this is _what I do_ ,” he snapped.  “It’s what I’ll do for those months, it’s all I’ll have, John.  I don’t know how to be another way, and I’m sorry if that disappoints you.  I seem to recall you proclaiming that you didn’t want to change me.  I didn’t realize that only held true until you were bored in front of the telly.”

John’s anger rose up again and he opened his mouth to retort, but then he bit it back and made himself take a moment.  He was still learning about Sherlock, that was true, but one thing he had definitely learned was that what he said was usually a mask over what he didn’t want to admit.  “You think you’re just a diversion to me?” he said, leaning against the edge of the desk.  Sherlock just sat there, arms crossed over his chest, staring at the closed laptop.  “Something to do, someone to shag?”

“No, of course not,” he said, but too quickly.

“Good.  Because _you’re_ not the diversion.  Everything else is.  Working, sleeping, eating, doing the bloody shopping – all the everyday things I have to do are just obstacles that get in the way of spending time with you.”

Sherlock’s jaw worked a bit.  “I’ve been sitting here reading about Enrico Marconi and the AC/DC current battles,” he said, shaking his head.  “It’s all fascinating, and it’s what I need to know, and it’s part of the work.  Work that I chose, and that I devoted my life to.  At one time I would have gladly eschewed all other pursuits to dedicate myself to this project.  I would have resented anything that drew my attention away.  So I don’t quite know what to do with the fact that now, I feel the opposite.”  He lifted his chin and met John’s eyes.  “I’ve wanted nothing more than a role exactly like this my entire career, and it’s disconcerting to find myself hating it, because it’s taking me away.”  He reached out and grasped one of John’s hands.  “I did intend to put all work aside for this holiday.  This may sound daft, but I think…I may have been trying to make it up to the project for feeling so ungrateful and uncharitable about it of late.”

John just shook his head.  “You are a strange, strange man.”

“You’re the one marrying me.”

“Indeed, I am.”  He threaded their fingers together on his thigh.  “Here’s what let’s do.  I never feel terribly social in the morning.  Why don’t we set aside the hours between breakfast and lunch for you to work?  I’ll go for a walk or something, or just lie around in bed.  You can either stay with me, or you can work, it’s up to you.  But then you’re mine for the rest of the day.  Deal?”

Sherlock smiled, looking a little relieved.  “Acceptable.”  He got up and headed for the living room, pulling John along behind him.  “Come on, then.  Let’s not keep Bette waiting.”

 

* * *

 

 

“John, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I have to resign my position as your PA.”

“Oh, is that so?  What did I do this time?”

“It isn’t you.  I’m just going to move in here with Gloria and Gus and learn to quilt and make my own pasta sauce with tomatoes I grow in my garden.”

“Enjoying yourself?” John said, grinning down at the phone.

“Think they’d adopt me?  Am I a bit old for that routine?”

“You already have two parents.”

“I’d be trading up.”

“Ouch.  Speaking of…”

“Yeah, they’re still coming down.  I talked to Charlie, they’re coming with him for the rehearsal.  Gloria’s planning a lovely dinner for both the families.”

“I’m awash with anticipation.  Put me down for steak, medium rare, with a side of Xanax, please.”

“For the reception, the tent and the tables and such are going up in the side garden, the caterer’s coming with the food around three.  They’ll set up while we’re seating everyone.  We’re going to have a bit of cocktails and nosh in the garden after the ceremony to give them time.  You and Sherlock will nip out to the Hailsham clerk’s office to do the legal bits during all that, you’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”

“That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?  When are you two coming back?”

“Thursday.  Got to make sure you don’t have the whole place awash in white calla lilies or something equally horrifying.”

“I was going to do up the entire garden in hydrangeas.”

John gasped.  “I will hunt you down like you just took the last pack of crisps.”

She laughed.  “I promise, no hydrangeas.”

“I hope you and Sally know how much we appreciate your handling all of this.  If we’d left it up to Irene, we’d probably have been taking vows riding through Regent’s Park on white horses or something.”

“She’s been on the phone with us every day.  I think we need hazard pay for fending her off.”

“She still on you about press?”

“No, happily she’s let that go.  I’ve forbidden her to ring you while you’re on holiday.”

“Bless you.”

“You might consider ringing her, though.  She’s got one offer that I think you should consider.”

“What’s that?”

“Diane Sawyer wants to interview you and Sherlock for ’60 Minutes.’  Your first joint interview as a couple.  She thinks, and I agree, that it’ll be a good time to lay everything out, tell your story, and talk to the public.  You’ll be just married, so that’s good karma, and they’ll give you a nice long segment.  They’ve already agreed to come here, so you wouldn’t lose any time traveling.”

“Just the time for the actual shooting, which is a day, at least.”

“Think about it.”

John sighed.  “I’ll ring her for the details, and discuss it with Sherlock.  But I hate to give up even one day between the wedding and when Sherlock leaves for Prague.”

“I know.  But it could do a lot of good.”  She chuckled.  “Oh, and be prepared…you’ll not be sharing a bedroom with your betrothed the night before.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s tradition.  You’ve got to sleep apart.”

“Sod all that.”

“John!  Humor me!  Honestly, do you really want to wake up next to him the day you’re going to marry him?”

“Yes!”

“Well, you’re not going to.  One of you will sleep in the green bedroom.”

“Which one has to decamp, then?”

“I don’t bloody care, flip a coin!”

“It’s not like the night after the wedding will be filled with wild debauchery, not with Sherlock’s mum and brother staying over.”

“Oh, no, I fixed that.  They’re staying the night before, but I’ve prevailed upon Mycroft to take their mum up to London after the wedding to stay with him before she heads back to Devon.  You’ll have the place to yourselves for your first night as husbands.”

“Hmm.  Well, I might forgive you this rubbish about sleeping apart for having arranged that.”  His phone trilled that another call was coming in.  He glanced at the screen, frowning.  “Harry, it’s Mike.  He wouldn’t call if it weren’t important.  I better go.”

“Ta, then.”  She clicked off, and John switched over to Mike.

“Hello, Mike.”

“John, I’m sorry to disturb you.  I know you’re on holiday.”

“That’s all right.  What’s on, then?”

“Listen, I know things have been – rough.  You’ve been a real sport, and I appreciate your faith.”

“Mike, are you breaking up with me?” John said, smirking.

“No!  God, no.  I just wish I could have done more before this.”

“Before…what?”

Mike chuckled.  “Yeah, I suppose I ought to get to the point, hadn’t I?  Okay, well, here it is.  The Coens want you, John.”

“They…they do?  For what?  A stunt-casting bit part?  Because I’ve had plenty of those flung at me, no thanks.”

“No, not for that!  It’s the lead role in their next project, and it’s a hell of a part.”

John just sat there for a moment.  “What?  Seriously?”

“Yeah, of course!”

“Sherlock told me about a project they were interested in him for, some sort of sci-fi franchise, is that what this is?”

“No, that project’s in turnaround, this is something else.  Just read it, and call me back.  But John – they want you.  Joel said you were the only name on the list for this part.  I think this could be the one, the one we’ve been waiting for.”

John swallowed hard.  He hadn’t realized until he heard Mike say that just how certain he’d become that nobody would ever want him for a role again.  “And they’re not…they don’t care about…you know.”

“It never came up.  Joel just talked about how great you were in _To a Stranger_ , and actually he said he’d been a fan since _Rewind_.  He said you remind him of Bill Macy.”

“Bloody hell, I’ll take that.”

“Well, this could be for you what _Fargo_ was for him, so read it and call me later.  I’ve emailed you the script, it should be in your Inbox now.”

“Okay, yeah.  I’ll get it.  Mike…thanks.  Thanks for sticking with it.”

“Like I’d ever give up on you, John.  Especially now that you’re an Oscar winner.  It’d take more than a couple of slow months.  We’ve been through worse.  I’ll talk to you later.”

John stared at the phone in his hand for a few seconds, then lunged for his laptop.  He refreshed his email and there it was, a message from Mike with an attachment.  He sat down on the couch in the living room and opened the file.  The title page popped up.

 

**AN ORDINARY DISAPPEARANCE**

By

Joel & Ethan Coen

 

He took a deep breath.   _Here we go_ , he thought, and began to read.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock got back to the lodge just before dinner, loaded down with books from the library in town.  He’d been hoping for some more research materials, and he’d found one book on Edwardian history that would be useful, but somehow he’d also ended up with several books on local geology and a biography of Robert the Bruce.  “John?” he called, dropping his bag near the door.  “Are you…”  He cut himself off when he saw John’s laptop sitting on the kitchen table with a Post-It note stuck to the screen.

_Read this.  I’ve gone for a walk.  Come find me after in our little spot._

Sherlock peeled the note off to reveal a script open on the desktop.  It was a Coen Brothers script, obviously sent to John, which meant Mike had called him here, which he would not have done if it weren’t a big deal.

He sat down and started reading without even taking off his jacket.

Ninety minutes later, Sherlock shut the laptop and walked out of the house.  There was a path behind the lodge that led off to a small, scenic clearing with a view of the lake and hills behind the property.  He and John had come out to watch the sunset a few times, and he found John there now, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs.  He crouched in front of the chair and put his hands on John’s knees.

“Did you read it?” John asked, without so much as a ‘hello.’

“Of course I read it.  Did you call Joel and Ethan?”

John shook his head.  “I wanted to talk to you first.”

Sherlock drew his phone out of his pocket.  “Call them right now and tell them you’ll take it.”

A slow smile dawned on John’s face.  “You liked it?”

“Hurry before they offer it to someone else.”

John took the phone but made no move to dial.  “Mike said I was the only name on their list.  No rush.”  His smile turned a little smirky, but he couldn’t keep it up.  He broke into a wide grin, leaned forward and hugged Sherlock, hard.  Sherlock hugged back, dropping to his knees for balance.  “You were right.”

“Aren’t I always?”

John laughed, pulling back a bit.  “It’s a great script.”

“It is.  And it is perfect for you.  Funny, deadpan, a little macabre.  I could hear your voice as I read it.”

“I could, too.  Myself, I mean.”  John pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a moment.  “I really thought, in my heart of hearts, that I was done.  That it would never happen.  That I’d be your arm-candy for all the awards ceremonies you’ll be attending and all the red carpets you’ll be on and I’d do, I don’t know, some telefilms and a Doctor Who episode or two and I was going to be okay with that, I really was, but then…this.  This will get me back in the game, I really think it will.”

“Then call them.  Call them right now.  The number’s in there already.”

John nodded and dialed.  He held the phone up to his ear, and as he listened to it ring, he suddenly darted forward and kissed Sherlock, hard on the mouth.  Sherlock watched as he got up and paced a little.  “Joel?  Yes, it’s John Watson.  My agent gave me your script, I’ve just read it.”  He paused.  “Yes, he told me that you’d said that.  I’m very flattered.  No, I loved it.  I’m thrilled.  I’d very much like to take the part.  Well, listen, do you mind if we put off discussing the details for awhile?  Are you on a tight timetable here?  Good.  No, it’s just that I’m getting married on Saturday, and Sherlock and I are in Scotland on holiday just now.”  He laughed.  “No, it’s fine, for this I don’t mind the interruption.  You can talk to Mike if you want, he can deal on my behalf.  Do you have a schedule set, or a read-through date?  Oh, good.  That’ll be perfect, actually.  Sherlock leaves for Prague in a few weeks and after that…well, I think you probably know that my dance card’s rather empty, so I’m at your disposal.”  Sherlock saw a blush come to John’s ears and he smiled.  “That’s nice of you to say.  Um…yes, he’s right here, actually.  Okay, I’ll tell him you said so.  Thanks, Joel.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I’ll be in touch when I’m back in the States in a few weeks.  Right, bye then.”  He hung up and just stood there, back turned, for a moment.

Sherlock came up behind him and turned him around.  “Well?”

“He says he and Ethan haven’t given up on getting you into one of their films one of these days.”

“We’ll see about that.”

John handed the phone back to Sherlock, stood stock-still for a few beats, and then let out a loud whoop and jumped up and down a few times.  Sherlock chuckled as he watched him do a little jig, then an attempt at a cartwheel that failed miserably, then a few more jumps.  “Fuck me, Sherlock, I have got a _part_ in a movie and it’s a _good_ movie and it’s _brilliant_ and I’m going to get fucking _paid_ for it and I could suck you off right here, that’s how brilliant everything is.”

“I’ll not be the one to dissuade you,” Sherlock said.

John grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him in for another kiss that started out a bit frantic and excited but quickly turned deeper and more heated.  Sherlock pulled him close and slid a hand under the hem of his shirt to rest on the warm skin of his back.  He could feel John’s pulse galloping away as they kissed, clutching at each other and pouring themselves into it.  John finally drew back, holding Sherlock’s face in his hands.  “Best wedding present I could have gotten,” he said, grinning.

“I’m thrilled for you, John.  Thrilled and relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“Of course.  If your career had suffered permanent damage, it would undoubtedly have put a strain on our relationship.”

John sobered, lowering his hands to twine his fingers with Sherlock’s.  “I know.”

“Nor did I relish the prospect of seeing you suffer, knowing I could do nothing about it.”

John nodded.  “This isn’t a magic bullet, you know.  It’s one role in one film.  There are no guarantees.”

“Are there ever?  But this isn’t just one role in one film, it’s _this_ role in _this_ film, and we could not have done better for your first post-Oscar project if we’d written the film ourselves.”

“I agree.”  He beamed another wide smile, looking up at Sherlock with that expression of full-hearted love that still amazed him to see.  “I feel like a huge weight’s been lifted from me.  Fuck, I didn’t realize how stressed I actually was until it was gone.  I could float away.”

“Who else is going to be in this film, did he say?”

“No.  It could be Lindsay Lohan and Howard Stern for all I care.”  He blinked, then reconsidered.  “Well, no, I would care in that case, but that isn’t too likely.”

“The film is two-thirds you, anyway.”

“You know, now that I have this, I should take another look at some of the projects Mike had been offered before.  If I’ve got a major lead role on the schedule, I could afford to do some smaller roles on the side.  The problem was that I couldn’t do only small roles.”

“Don’t overextend yourself.  You needn’t cram your schedule with everything that comes down the road.”

“I want to keep busy while you’re away,” John said, sobering again.  “It’ll…help.”

“Those months will fly by.”

“For you they will.  You’ll be working fourteen-hour days, you’ll barely have time to miss me.”

“And yet, miss you, I shall.”  He kissed John’s forehead  “Let’s go back.  We’ve only got two more days before we must go back and face the world again.”

They started back to the lodge, hands clasped.  “Irene wants us to do a long joint interview for ’60 Minutes’ next week.”

“Hmm.  You decide.  I’ll do it if you want us to.”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

“Fine.”

“You know – it doesn’t make much sense for you to fly back to L.A. with me next Friday, spend two days at home and then fly to Prague on Monday.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “I was wondering if you’d come to that conclusion.”

“Not that I wouldn’t want that time with you, but it’s a lot of flying.  I don’t want you worn out from travel just when you’re starting the shoot.”

“It would be more logical for me to remain here, and fly to Prague from London.”

John nodded as they came back into the house.  “I know it’s the best idea, but…fuck.”

“I know.”

He went to the kitchen and got out the kettle and some mugs for tea.  “Saying goodbye isn’t going to be any easier at home than it will be here,” he said, his back to Sherlock.

“No, it won’t.”  Sherlock watched him for a moment, wondering if now was a good time to broach a different topic, one he’d been sitting on for a few days.  “John, I…”   _No, this is his moment.  Don’t intrude on it._  “Never mind."

  
John turned, frowning.  “What?”

“It’s not important.”

“C’mon, tell me.”

Sherlock sighed.  “Would you read the _Alienist_ script?”

John took a sip of his tea.  “You want me to?”

“Yes.  I need to make a decision.”

“Of course I will.”  He cocked his head.  “What made you hesitate to ask me that?”

“I didn’t wish to trample over your excitement.”

John laughed.  “I’ll be just as excited whether I’m reading your script or not.  Besides, it isn’t trampling.  This is our life, you’re not imposing on me.”  He put down his tea.  “Come on, then, let’s go get it.”

“Now?”

“Yes, you silly sod, now.”

 

* * *

 

John lowered the script and looked up at Sherlock, exasperated.  “Will you stop pacing?  Sit down, I’ve only a few pages left.”

Sherlock flopped into the chair in the corner with a pout.  John went back to reading.  Sherlock had retrieved the script from his briefcase, handed it to John and made himself scarce.  A few minutes ago he’d reappeared to see if John was done yet, and had been hovering ever since.

John ignored the glowering specter in the corner of the room and pushed through to the end, then flipped the script closed.  “Well?” Sherlock said, leaning forward.

“It’s brilliant.”

Sherlock pondered this, then nodded.  “I agree.  But my dilemma still exists.  I refuse to be typecast as a quirky Edwardian aesthete.”

“But…”  John trailed off.

“But what?  No, go ahead and say it.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were going to point out that since I already _look_ like a quirky Edwardian aesthete, I might as well capitalize on my genetic destiny.”

“Well, those weren’t the _exact_ words I was going to use…”

“I’ve resisted it my whole career.”

“Sherlock, do you like this script?  Do you like this character?”

“Yes, to both.”

“Then who cares?  You should take the roles that appeal to you, the roles that will challenge you, and typecasting be damned.”

Sherlock got up and came to sit next to him, picking up the dog-eared script.  “The characters are actually quite different.  Tesla is a cerebral loner.  He retreats from society and takes comfort in his work and his inventions.  Kreizler is much more romantic, he’s almost Byronic.  He has passion.”

“Well, there you go.  Just because you’ll have to don frock coats for both roles is no reason to turn down this film.”

“I look rather well in a frock coat.”

“Yes, you do.”  John smiled at him.  “This could be another Oscar for you.  I know Greg thinks so.”

“I don’t care about that.”

John reached out and combed his fingers through Sherlock’s curls.  He leaned into the touch.  “Are you going to do it?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“It’s not my decision.”

“It was my impression that our decisions from here on were to be joint decisions.”

“I’ve told you what I think.  But it’s still your career, and it’s up to you.  Do you want to do it?”

Sherlock didn’t hesitate.  “Yes.”

“Good.”  John grinned at him and pulled him down onto the couch for a cuddle, Sherlock making sure to position his head for ease of hair-stroking.  They lay in silence for a few moments.  Sherlock relaxed into John’s arms; he could feel the absence of the tension that had been in John’s body for months.  “If you were a cat, you’d be purring,” John murmured, his hand still in Sherlock’s hair.

Sherlock frowned.  “Would you...like me to purr?  Is that something you find exciting?”

John’s chest shook with laughter.  “Christ, Sherlock, it was just a comment.  Not everything I say is a revelation of a new kink.”

“Oh.  Good.”

“Although...you’d look awfully fetching in cat ears.”

“Let’s rewind this conversation and delete all mention of cats in any context.”

“Fair enough.”  John sighed.  “I feel weightless.  I’m starting to think…”  He trailed off.

Sherlock lifted his head and met John’s eyes.  “What?”

“That everything might actually be all right.  We might get away with it.  We might be allowed to be together without the universe making us pay a steep price for our happiness.”

“It isn’t a just world.  The universe is indifferent to our lives.  It’d be more accurate to hope that society and the people in it might allow us our happiness.”

“Do you think they will?”

“That remains to be seen.  But I think there’s cause for optimism.”

John smiled, then drew Sherlock’s head back down to his shoulder.  “All I know is that today was a good day.  I’ll take it.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like it on the record that I wrote the part about John's Coen Brothers film - including any comparisons to Bill Macy and the movie "Fargo" -- looooooong before Martin Freeman was cast in the television series "Fargo." Yes, I'm psychic. No, I won't tell you next week's lottery numbers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We start getting into wedding mechanics here, so just to clarify: I am aware that a wedding conducted at a private home is not legal in the UK. Sherlock and John have made plans to go to the registry office and do the legal bit, but they're still having their ceremony at their house. An officiant from the registry office is conducting the ceremony, which is absolutely unnecessary - it isn't legal, so John's three-year-old niece could do it - but for story flow purposes that's how I've chosen to write it. John and Sherlock just like things streamlined. She can have them say their words at the house, then they can all go back to the registry office and sign on the dotted line. Done and done.
> 
> Thanks as always to my betas, mazarin221b and roane72.

As comfortable and luxurious as their Scottish vacation lodge had been, nothing could really compare to waking up at home, _their_ home.  John stretched, blinking in the sunlight.  He wiped at his face and turned to see Sherlock lying propped up on a few pillows, his glasses slid down to the end of his nose, scrolling through something on his phone.

“What time is it?” he mumbled.

“Just past seven,” Sherlock replied, his eyes still on whatever he was reading.

John just looked at him for a moment. _In forty-eight hours, he’ll be my husband_.  The fluttering in his belly at that thought was equal parts anticipation and amazement.  He indulged in a little idle appreciation of Sherlock’s profile, limned in gold sunlight.  “God, you’re gorgeous,” he whispered.

Sherlock cast a quick glance at him, a smile at the corners of his eyes.  “Yes, I’m sure I’m at my most alluring just now in my glasses and bedhead, with morning breath and sheet-creases on my face.”

“You’re always alluring to me.”  He slid a little closer and rested his cheek against Sherlock’s shoulder, running a hand over his chest.  “What are you doing?”

“Mmm.  Nothing.  Looking up…things.”

“Things?” John said, smiling.

“Things.  Items.  Facts of interest.”

“How long have you been up?”

“A few hours.”

John sighed.  “You should get some more sleep.  Big day today.”

Sherlock put his phone aside and shifted closer to John, slipping his arm around his shoulders.  “There is no amount of sleep that will magically make me palatable to your parents.”

“I wish I didn’t care.  I mean I don’t.  No, I don’t care.”

“You are allowed to care. They’re your parents, be they deserving of your concern or not.”

“Charlie says they’ve promised to be civil.”

“Their definition of ‘civil’ and yours may differ.  Prepare yourself.”

“I’m trying to be realistic.  But I won’t tolerate them being rude to you in your own house.  They’re our guests.”

“Given a choice between tolerating some rudeness and talking you down from the guilt spiral you’ll end up in if you throw them out, I’d prefer to suffer some rudeness.”

“That’s my call.  If I have to choose between them and you, you win any day.”

Sherlock was quiet for a long time.  “You really would choose me, wouldn’t you?”

“I already did.”  John kissed him, his hand slipping beneath the sheets to slide between Sherlock’s legs.  He growled against John’s mouth, then kissed down his throat to his chest.  John let himself be laid out on his back as Sherlock settled between his thighs, sliding his shoulders under John’s knees before he swallowed him down.  “Jesus,” John breathed, looking down his own heaving chest at his cock in Sherlock’s mouth.  Sherlock looked up at him from underneath his eyelashes, something he knew would send John over the edge.  “Oh God, Sher…Sherlock!” John cried.  Sherlock lifted his mouth off and stroked him through his orgasm, nuzzling at the base of John’s cock as he spurted over his own belly.

Before he had even come down, Sherlock was up and over him, kissing him with John’s taste on his lips, sliding his hands under John’s back to curl his fingers up and around his shoulders and pull him closer still.  John could do nothing but lie there, boneless, and kiss back.  Sherlock slid off and scooped John’s torso off the bed, turning him to his stomach, John’s limbs going along for the ride.  John arched his back, pressing his hips into the mattress; Sherlock straddled John’s legs and slid his still-hard cock between John’s thighs, lubing himself with one hand as he did so.  He was breathing hard and it sent John’s nascent arousal climbing again to feel Sherlock’s desire for him; he was so cool and collected so much of the time that when he was overcome, it was a potent aphrodisiac for them both.

John reached back and gripped Sherlock’s hip.  Sherlock dropped his head into the hollow of John’s shoulder and kissed his neck, his hips thrusting gently against John’s arse.  “You are divine,” he breathed against John’s skin.  John propped up a bit on his elbows to arch his back further, the heat of the bed and their bodies bringing sweat to their skin.  Sherlock wrapped an arm around John’s chest and braced on one hand, digging his hips deeper against John’s arse.

John tilted his head back against Sherlock’s shoulder, exposing his neck to Sherlock’s lips.  “Yes, harder,” he whispered.  “God, touch me.”  Sherlock slid his hand down John’s chest and gripped him, stroking him in time with his thrusts; John got one hand underneath himself as well and stroked Sherlock’s cock as it slid between his legs.  Sherlock had gone a bit gaspy, little moans hanging onto the end of each breath.

“John, yes,” he hissed into John’s ear, tilting his head around to kiss his mouth, tangling their tongues together.  His hips moved faster, harder, little noises of urgency escaping his throat.  John’s fingers teased at the head of Sherlock’s cock as it moved behind his own, Sherlock’s hand on his erection pulling him along.  Sherlock thrust hard against him and came, shuddering and groaning with his mouth against John’s neck.  They collapsed in a heap on the bed, each with one hand trapped beneath them.  Sherlock tipped them onto their sides and pulled John tight against his chest, peppering his neck and shoulders with kisses.  John could feel Sherlock’s heart pounding against his back.

“Fuck,” John sighed.  “That was…hot.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock said, his lips still occupied with John’s skin.

They lay there curled together until their pulses had returned to normal.  John looked down at himself, his groin a mess of his own and Sherlock’s come.  “Jesus, I look like the new guy at the bathhouse.”

Sherlock chuckled, low and seductive.  “Sorry about that.  I confess I felt a little…territorial.”

“Marking me as your property?”

“I dislike the idea that I have the capacity for such a primal instinct, but I can’t deny that it’s there.”

“It’s in the DNA.  You know I get off on that myself.”

“Seems as though my higher reasoning ought to be able to overcome it.”

John flipped over to face him.  “So you’re saying that my sex appeal is too powerful for your rationality?”

Sherlock smirked.  “So it would seem.”

“Careful, my ego.  First a fantastic movie role, now the great Sherlock Holmes admits that he’s helpless before his lust for me.”

Sherlock’s smirk fell away and he reached up to trail one fingertip down John’s face.  “I have always been helpless before you, John.  You are kind enough to allow me to pretend otherwise, but we know better.”

John darted forward and kissed him.  “You know, the next time we have sex we’ll be married.”

Sherlock frowned.  “Surely we could fit in another go between now and then,” he grumbled.

John laughed.  “After lunch this house will be taken over by friends, family and Irene, and we’ll not get it back until tomorrow evening.  And don’t forget, we’re not sleeping together tonight.”

“My protest has already been lodged on that score.”

“It’s only one night.  So who’s taking the green room?”

Sherlock heaved a long-suffering sigh.  “I will take that burden upon myself.”

“No, no, we ought to flip a coin or something.”

“I prefer to be the one ousted.  At least then I can be kept company by the image of you lying in our bed.”  He kissed John softly.  “Get a few more hours’ sleep if you can.  I think our next thirty-six hours will charitably be described as ‘hectic.’”

John snuggled close, already drifting off.  He felt Sherlock go for his phone again, but as long as he kept one arm around John, that was just fine.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, there is a saying regarding watched pots that seems relevant just now,” Sherlock said, materializing at John’s shoulder.

“They’re late.  They should have been here half an hour ago.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

“I’m not worried that they aren’t fine, I want them to get here so we can get this over with,” John said, irritation sharpening his tone.

Sherlock put his hands on John’s shoulders and squeezed lightly.  “Calm down.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down, Sherlock.”

“All right, don’t calm down.  Just think about the worst possible outcome.  They’ll arrive, become so disgusted with our deviant homosexual lifestyle that they turn around and leave again, thus enabling all of us to enjoy ourselves without their charming company.”

“No, the worst case scenario is that they arrive, are disgusted, _don’t_ leave and make the entire occasion intensely unpleasant for everyone, and we’ll never be able to remember our own wedding without thinking of how awful they were.”

“That is an impossible outcome, because if they became that unpleasant I would not-so-politely enable their hasty exit.”

John sighed.  “Or the worst possible outcome could be that they’re so horrified by seeing us together that they both drop dead of heart attacks, my siblings blame me and never speak to me again, my father’s horrible brother sues us for wrongful death and takes everything we own, we never work again because of the scandal and we spend the rest of our lives huddling in council flats and eating pot noodles.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “I do believe that the ‘worst possible outcome’ exercise is intended to refer to the ‘worst possible _likely_ outcome.’”

He shook his head.  “This is my parents we’re talking about.  An asteroid hitting earth would be just their luck, according to them.”

Sherlock slid one arm around John’s waist.  “I could tolerate living in council flats and eating pot noodles,” Sherlock murmured.  “If you were with me.”

“Have you ever actually eaten pot noodles?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Then don’t be so sure,” John said, chuckling.  He leaned back into Sherlock’s chest.  “I suppose I am being a bit alarmist.  Do you blame me?”

“No.  But I believe your suspense is at an end,” Sherlock said.

John straightened up as they both saw Charlie’s car turn into the drive.  John stepped back and ran a hand over his hair and clothing.  “Oh, bloody hell.  Do I look presentable?”

“You look fine.”  Sherlock cleared his throat, his hands going into his pockets, which was the universal Sherlock Sign for ‘I’m about to do something that makes me uncomfortable.’  “John, it’s my understanding that at this moment, I should reiterate that I love you and am here for you.”  His lips twitched a bit, as if he weren’t sure if he ought to say more or just leave it there.

John couldn’t help but grin.  “Oh, that’s your understanding, is it?”

“It is, although you already know both those things, and I would have thought that reiterating them would just make you think I doubted your memory.”

“You know, there was a time that I’d be annoyed that you are obviously saying that because you got it out of a book or a script or something.”

“But you’re not annoyed now?”

John stepped closer and put a hand on Sherlock’s chest.  “I learned long ago that even the words aren’t yours, you still mean it.”

“Of course I mean it.  I say nothing that I don’t mean.”

“I know.”  He kissed him.  “Now come on, time to say hello to my parents.”

“Do you wish me to wait here?”

“What?  No, you’re bloody coming with me.”  He grabbed Sherlock’s arm and pulled him out the front door just as Charlie got out of the car.  John waved, hoping he looked comfortable, relaxed and confident, none of which he actually felt.

“Johnny!” Charlie exclaimed, barreling forward to envelop John in a hug.  “Bloody good to see you, mate.  Look at this place!” he said, grinning up at the house.  “And Sherlock, good to see you, too,” he went on, pulling a startled Sherlock into another hug.

John watched as his father opened the car door for his mother, giving her a hand to help her out.  They were both looking around as if they’d just passed through the wardrobe into Narnia.  “Mum, Dad,” John said, bolstering his courage and stepping forward to meet them.

He could see his mother gathering her resolve.  She gave him a mostly-genuine smile and accepted his kiss on her cheek, clasping his hands in hers.  “Hello, John,” she said, quietly.

John faced his father, who looked carved out of granite.  “Dad, thanks for coming,” he said, putting out his hand.

His father hesitated, his jaw clenching a little, then he took a step forward and shook John’s hand.  “John, good to see you,” he said, gruff and half-swallowed.

“What a lovely…place,” his mother said.

Sherlock stepped up to John’s side.  “Arthur,” he said neutrally, putting out his own hand.  John’s stomach clenched, but his father only paused for a moment before shaking Sherlock’s hand with a restrained nod.  “Hello, Sandra,” he said, turning to John’s mother.

The moment stretched on and on, and to John it felt much longer than it probably was; just a few seconds, surely, until his mother reached out and took Sherlock’s offered hand.  “Sherlock,” she said, quietly, with a small, tight smile.  John relaxed a little; clearly their innate British politeness was winning over whatever disgust they were feeling.

“Won’t you come inside?” Sherlock said, motioning to the door.  He was all smoothness and gentility, the image of a proper public-school gentleman

John watched his parents cross the threshold of the home he shared with his male partner, and for a moment was dumbstruck that such a thing was really happening.  Charlie clapped him on the shoulder as he went by, and they followed along inside.

“Arthur, Sandra,” Sherlock was saying, guiding them towards the living room, “I’d like you to meet my brother, Mycroft Holmes, and my mother, Elizabeth.  Mother, Mycroft, this is Arthur and Sandra Watson.”

Elizabeth beamed a wide smile and all but leapt forward to seize Sandra’s hand in both of her own.  “Oh, it’s lovely to meet you, I’m so glad you came.  John is such a wonderful young man, I’m just thrilled to have him as part of our family.  You must be so proud of him.”

John could have kissed her.  His mother was just staring at her, mouth half open.  “Oh…well, of course,” she finally stammered.

Elizabeth reached out and grasped Arthur’s hand, too.  He just looked flummoxed.  “Come, let’s get you some tea.  You must be tired after your drive, we’ll have a sit and get acquainted before the rehearsal.”  She shepherded them off into the dining room.

Mycroft sauntered up.  “Any opportunity to show off her hostessing skills,” he muttered.  “Not to mention demonstrate her largesse in being solicitous to the working classes.”

“I’ve never been more grateful for an upper-class social education,” John said.

“Your poor parents don’t stand a chance,” Sherlock said.

“You must be Charles,” Mycroft said, turning to Charlie.  “Mycroft Holmes.”

“Course you are,” Charlie said, pumping Mycroft’s hand with more enthusiasm than he was probably used to.  “Good to meet you.”

“And this is Greg Lestrade, Sherlock’s agent,” John said, motioning Greg over.

“Not today,” Greg said, shaking Charlie’s hand.  “Today I’m just the best man.”

“You and me both, then!  Tell me, are we taking these chaps out for one last night of bad behavior?”

“Wouldn’t it rather defeat the traditional purpose if we both went?” Sherlock cut in, smoothly.

“Oh.  I guess it might do.”

“I’d just as soon stay home, Charlie,” John said, visions of being dragged to a strip club dancing through his head.

Charlie sobered, fidgeting from foot to foot.  “Before we do this, there’s something I should probably tell you.”

“What?”

“I think one of those photographers tried to follow us here.”

John exchanged a glance with Sherlock.  “What makes you say that?”

“When I picked up Mum and Dad, a car pulled out just after I did.  He was just sitting there at the kerb, like he was waiting for me to leave.  He kept right with me for quite awhile.  I lost him, though,” Charlie said, puffing up a bit.

“Yeah?” John said, grinning.

“Nobody knows that neighborhood better’n me.  He got stuck at a red light and I quick-like took the craziest route I could think of away.  Didn’t see him again.  But Johnny…if he knew where Mum and Dad live…”

“Yeah, they might be lurking around somewhere.”  John looked at Irene.

“I’ll make some calls,” she said, stepping away.

Sherlock looked distressed.  “Relax,” John murmured, moving close.  “It’s one pap, he didn’t make it out of town.”

“If he can find your parents, they can find us here.”

“We’re safe here.”

“I’m not sure we’re safe anywhere.”

“Well, I choose not to let it get to me.  I’m surprised you’re this worried, usually you don’t give a toss.”

“I’m discovering that it’s different when it affects not only me, but you as well.”

John smiled and squeezed his hand.  “Nothing like Sydney’s going to happen here.  Worst case scenario, a few blurry long-range photos show up in the Daily Mail.”

Sherlock sighed.  “I hope you’re right.”

 

* * *

 

 

John should have known that the odds of making it through a wedding rehearsal without getting into a fight with his groom-to-be were vanishingly small.  He’d been so fixated on how his parents would deal with the reality of their son’s same-sex wedding that he had forgotten that Sherlock wasn’t exactly Mr. Happy Fun Groom who just loved weddings and all their trappings and rituals.

The first sign of trouble was the arrival of the officiant from the registry, who was in her thirties, rather more fashionably turned-out than John would have expected, and who immediately began gushing all over them.  Her eagerness to demonstrate how totally okay she was with two men getting married crossed the line into overdone, and nothing was quicker to set Sherlock’s teeth on edge than that particular flavor of patronization.  Add in a healthy dollop of starstruck – she tried to hide it, but they were both well familiar with The Look people got when they were in awe of their celebrity – and John could all but see Sherlock’s pique rising like the mercury in a thermometer.

Matters did not improve when they adjourned to the garden and Harry started in with the logistics of the wedding.  “We didn’t know if you wanted to walk up the aisle, or what,” she said, stammering a little.

John heard his father give a derisive snort.  “Problem, Dad?” he said, turning.

“Well, which of you’s the woman?”

His mother shot him a glare.  John caught Sherlock mid-eyeroll.  “I’m not wild about the idea of either of us walking up the aisle,” John said.  “I can’t think of a way to do it that won’t look stupid.”

“We do have a Plan B,” Sally said.  “Which is that each of you escorts your mother up the aisle, then you just sort of stay up there.”

John pondered that.  “Well, I don’t hate the idea.  Sherlock?”

“It makes no difference to me,” he said, sounding snippy.

“Who’s going first?” Harry said.

He and Sherlock just looked at each other.  “Uh…”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t decided.”

“Oh, you mean there’s to be a decision left up to us?” Sherlock sneered.  “How novel.”

Sally smacked him in the arm.  “One of you has to go first!”

“Whoever goes second is going to seem like the bride,” John muttered.

“You have to pick.  There’s only one aisle,” Harry said, looking at her watch.

“I beg to differ,” Sherlock said.  “There are three aisles.  One up the middle, and one on either side.  Why can we not use the sides and go up at the same time?”

Harry and Sally exchanged a ‘duh’ sort of glance.  “Perfect,” Sally said.  “Okay, let’s…try that out, shall we?”

Sherlock put his hands on his hips.  “What, walk through it like we’re getting ready for a Nativity play?”

“Sherlock…”

He put up his hands.  “Very well, then.”

They went through the motions.  Sherlock took the far aisle, escorting Elizabeth, who was the only person present who seemed to be enjoying the experience.  The chairs weren’t set up yet so she just stood there next to Mycroft.  Sherlock went to the front and stood next to Greg, his arms crossed and an expression of impatience on his face.  John walked up the near aisle with his own mother, trying and failing to get into the spirit of the moment.  His father followed them, his glower perceptible even through the back of John’s neck.  He got them to their spots as quickly as possible and took his place next to Charlie.

He looked up and met Sherlock’s eyes, and for one brief, shining moment, he felt happy and excited.

Then the officiant opened her mouth.

“Let’s run through your ceremony, shall we?” she said, opening her little book.

Sherlock blinked and took a step back.  “What?”

She stared at him.  “Now is when I walk you through the ceremony.”

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head.  “We don’t do that.”

“Sherlock, what did you think a rehearsal was for?” John said.

“Not for this,” he said, in his “brooking no refusal” tone.  “For…all the other baggage.”

“You don’t want to go through the ceremony,” John said, flatly.

“If we do it now, what’s the point of doing it tomorrow?”

“We don’t do it now _for real_ ,” John said.  The officiant was watching them, her eyes flicking back and forth like she was at a tennis match.  “We mark the lines, like at a read-through!”

“No.  I’m doing this once, when it is, as you say, ‘for real,’ and not before.  I don’t want to be standing here with you right now.”  He took a few steps away.  Everyone was staring at him.

“Can we not do this?” John said, through clenched teeth.

“That’s just what I want, not to do this!”

“No, I mean can we not _fight_ about this?  Let’s just get it over with.”

“Do you doubt either of our ability to follow prompts in a simple exchange of words? Do you doubt that I already know my lines? We’re both professionals, do we need to practice it like we’re four years old?”

“We’re professional _actors_ , and I for one am hoping that neither of us is acting when we say our marriage vows.  We’re not professionals at getting married!”

“That isn’t the point.”

“You’re being irrational.”

“Fine, then I’m irrational.  I’m finished here.”  He stalked off through the garden, and into the house.

John sighed, then smiled an apology at the officiant.  “I’m sorry.  He’s…twitchy.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said.  “Many grooms are.”

“I think we’ll do fine tomorrow.  Thanks for coming out.”   _For three minutes of us walking in the garden_ , he thought but did not say.

“Is that all, then?” Elizabeth said, blinking in confusion.

“Seems so, yes.  I’m sorry, I…”  He looked at Harry with a _help-me_ expression.

“Let’s all go have some drinks while Gloria and Gus get dinner ready for us,” she said, herding everyone into the house.

John shot her a quick ‘thanks’ look as he went inside.  Irene was standing by the doorway, watching.  “That went well,” she said, neutrally.

“God, I don’t know what the hell his problem is.”

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” she said, one eyebrow arching.

John just stomped off after Sherlock, finally locating him in the usually-vacant bedroom that he’d be occupying this evening.  “You want to start, or shall I?” he said, shutting the door behind him.

Sherlock was fiddling with the suit he’d wear the next day, inspecting it for lint, John supposed.  “I’m not interested in rehashing what just happened.”

“What the hell was that all about?”  He narrowed his eyes.  “What’s going on?”

“You were there, you saw it.”

“What I saw was you acting like a stroppy child.  You couldn’t be nice for thirty bloody minutes?  And in front of my fucking parents, who now probably think you’re an ill-tempered bastard on top of being male.”

Sherlock paused, then his shoulders sagged a little.  “That is…regrettable.”

“Regrettable?  You couldn’t have put on a pleasant front just this once, just to help them adjust?  You were doing so well when they first arrived -- did that use up all your politeness reserves?”

Sherlock whirled around to face him.  “I’m sorry, John, I didn’t realize that the price of your parents’ approval was having to dilute my entire personality and feign being the Perfect Son-in-Law!  I will not dance for their amusement and I would not have thought you wanted me to.”

John ran a hand through his hair.  “No, I wouldn’t.  But don't act like that was The Real You out there.  You are not that much of a twat, not really.   I don’t want you to be someone you aren’t, but did you have to dial it up to eleven?”

“Ah, so you don’t want me to be someone I’m not, just as long as I’m not who I am.  It’s all so clear now,” he snarled.

“What’s this about?  This isn’t about rehearsing.  What did you think we’d be doing?”

Sherlock sat down on the edge of the bed, some of the fight seeming to leave him.  “I didn’t truly realize until we were standing there that…well, that she meant to…actually rehearse the ceremony.”

“I don’t understand.”

There was a long pause.  Sherlock’s fingers clenched in the duvet.  “I know that my affect is sometimes disinterested.  I do not often betray my true feelings.  But John, surely you know that…well.”  He cleared his throat, still keeping his eyes downcast.

John looked down at the top of his head.  “I know.”

“I don’t know that you do.”  He shook his head.  “I have often, in the past, denigrated the custom of marriage as a trumped-up recitation of totemic phrases, ultimately meaningless.  I was embarrassed to discover that I am no more immune to its pull than anyone else, once I found someone to whom I wished to pledge myself.  Suddenly the idea of a rite to formalize our relationship didn’t seem so silly.  I’m sure I don’t know why, but it’s taken on a great deal of importance.  Not the caterers and the flowers and whatever bloody else there is, sod all that, but…”  He finally lifted his eyes and met John’s gaze.  “There is something to this idea of standing before witnesses and declaring myself to be yours, and to hear you do the same.”  He shrugged.  “I don’t know how to say those things and make them not real.  I’ve spent my whole life rehearsing things, but this…I don’t know how to rehearse this.”

John sighed, then took a step forward to stand between Sherlock’s knees, reaching down to clasp his hands.  “All right, then.  We won’t rehearse if you don’t want to.  But you could have told me all this before we were standing there.”

“I didn’t anticipate having this reaction.  There seems to be no end to the unexplored nooks and crannies of my psyche that I am discovering thanks to you.  I don’t know whether to be grateful or outraged.”  He pulled his hands free and settled them on John’s hips, drawing him closer.  “Perhaps we could just rehearse our wedding night instead,” he said, his eyes twinkling a bit.

John chuckled.  “I think we ought to go downstairs and rehearse being nice to our families.”

“Ugh.  My idea is better.”

John leaned down and kissed him.  Sherlock wound his arms around John’s hips; when the kiss ended, he pressed his face into John’s chest.  John stroked a hand through his curls, a powerful memory coming to him of their very first kiss, in Sherlock’s dressing room at the National Theater.  “Remember?” he whispered.

Sherlock tilted his head up, his chin on John’s breastbone.  “Oh, yes.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock escaped to the garden after dinner, needing some quiet.  John had seen him go; they’d exchanged a quick nod of _be right back/go ahead_ and out he’d slipped out..

He walked through the garden, all cleared and neatened up for the chairs to be set up for their wedding guests.  He lingered at the spot where, in less than twenty-four hours, he’d promise to love and honor John until death parted them.  This did not give him pause, but the whole social ordeal was a little daunting.  And he was still worried that the media would somehow find them and intrude, a concern he hadn’t mentioned lest he set everyone else to worrying.

He was standing on the slight hill past the garden, looking out towards the creek, when he heard approaching footsteps.  He could recognize Sandra Watson by her stride.  He heard her hesitate; she’d just spotted him.  She hadn’t come out in search of him, then, but more likely in search of solitude of her own, and probably to sneak a cigarette.  He waited to see if she would try to retreat, or screw her courage to the sticking place and join him.  After a long pause, she did the latter.

Sherlock didn’t acknowledge her when she came up to his side.  She wouldn’t want to be put on the spot, and he preferred to allow her to start the conversation, if she were so inclined.

“You’re not a…people person, are you?” she said, quietly.

“Not really, no.  Nor are you.”

“I’m the only one.  Arthur and the children, they’re all so social.  It’s exhausting.”  

Sherlock frowned.  “I would not have described Arthur as ‘social.’”

“You’ve never seen him with his mates at the pub.”  She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.  She started to put them back, then hesitated.  “Would you like one?” she said, holding out the pack.

Sherlock sighed, then took one.  He accepted a light from her and took a puff.  “John will kill me,” he muttered.

“You’ve quit, then?”

“Ages ago, long before I met him.  He’s quite down on smoking.”

Sandra took a few drags, then Sherlock saw her square her shoulders.  She turned to face him and just…looked.  She looked at him as you’d examine something in a museum, an exotic and rarely-glimpsed species that inspires both horror and awe.  He kept his eyes forward, allowing her to look.  She had the manner of one forcing herself to face down something that terrified her, hoping exposure would blunt the unpleasantness.  “I love my son.  And I am trying.”

He nodded.  “Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.”

“I just don’t…I never pretended to be a sophisticated woman.  I’ve never wanted to be.  I know what I know, and the rest doesn’t matter.  But I can’t talk to John about this.  I can’t ask him about it.  He can’t help me understand.”

“Are you asking me if I can?”

She bit her lip.  “What if I were?”

“You can ask me whatever you like.  I won’t promise to answer.”

“I suppose that’s fair.”  She stubbed out her cigarette and crossed her arms.  “Did you do this?”

He looked at her.  “Do what?”

“Seduce my son.”

Sherlock laughed.  “What a revolting notion.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I sound simple, but I don’t know how it happens with you people.”

“I’m sorry, what category of humanity are you classing me with?  What people?”

“Homosexuals.”

“You’ve been assuming all this time that I was already gay and converted John through some sort of gay mind control?”

“John was never…like that about men before he met you.”

“Are you sure about that?  Because he isn’t.  And I never had any interest in men either, not before I met him.  As for how it happens, how does it ever happen?”  Sandra didn’t reply.  Sherlock took a deep drag on the cigarette, already aware that he’d regret doing so while battling back the awakened cravings for the next two weeks.  “Arthur was quiet at dinner,” he finally said.

Sandra blew smoke out of her mouth.  “I won’t apologize for my husband.”

“Did I ask you to?”

“Under the circumstances, ‘quiet’ is the best you can expect.  ‘Quiet’ is a gift.”

He snorted.  “Yes, God forbid we expect some courtesy from a guest in our home.”

“God does forbid it.  He forbids _all_ of it.  All of this…this, it’s an abomination in His sights.”  Her tone was tired, as if she’d been over this in her head hundreds of times already.

“I understand that to many people, what they perceive as the will of God is paramount, but if you want the truth, I don’t give a toss what your imaginary friend from your fairy stories thinks about my life, or John’s.”

She gaped at him.  “How…I…how do you _dare_ say such things about God?”

“I dare very easily.  You have every right to believe what you will, and I have every right to find it ridiculous.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“No, you shouldn’t.  And if you think that God is the reason your husband hates what John and I are to each other, you’re very sadly wrong.”

She sighed.  “I know.”

“To him, his masculine virility is reflected in his sons, and John’s machismo has been damaged by his choice of a man as a sexual and romantic partner.  It’s a threat to his ego, so he fears it, which makes him despise it.  Simple.”

Sandra was watching him as you’d watch a snake that might bite you.  “You’re very hateful, aren’t you?”

“Not at all.  I hate no one.  Not you, and not your husband.  I’m simply observing his behavior, and yours, and drawing conclusions from it.  What I hate is how it affects John. I don’t give a toss if you and your husband loathe _me_.  That’s none of my affair.  But I care very much if John suffers for it.  His happiness is my top priority.”

“If you cared for his happiness, wouldn’t you be trying to…I don’t know, get me to like you instead of insulting me and my beliefs?”

Sherlock sighed.  “Probably.  I _want_ to make John happy, I never said I was particularly good at it.  I’m afraid I’m also rather good at getting in my own way.”

Sandra laughed, a harsh, bitter sound.  “You’re one of the oddest men I’ve ever met.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Certainly the bluntest.”

“Heard that before, too.”

“I’m surprised you’re able to love anyone.”

“Oh, you’re three for three.”

“But you love John.”

Sherlock turned his head and met her eyes.  “Profoundly.”

She held his gaze for a few beats.  “I believe you.”  She shook her head as if it were all beyond her.  She took another drag on her cigarette.  “I do want him to be happy, you know,” she finally said, quietly.  “I just don’t understand how, out of three billion women in the world, there wasn’t _one_ who could make him happy.”

“Perhaps there is.  But he met me first.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she snapped.

Sherlock snorted.  “Sandra, tomorrow afternoon, John will become my husband.  Just a few short days afterwards, I am leaving the country and will probably not see him for two months.  If you think that your disapproval tops my list of concerns, or his, then you overestimate your importance.  Before I met John, all I cared about was my work.  Now all I care about is my work, and John.  Unfortunately, sometimes one will take priority over the other, in either direction.  He understands that, and it is the same for him.  I am not an easy man to get along with, or to live with.  I would have thought that I was an impossible man to love, or to commit to spending a lifetime with, but John has made something of an art out of surprising me.  We will build a life together regardless of how you and your husband feel about it.  He will always be your son, but he will be my husband first.  Your continued relationship with John will depend on how you choose to treat us from here on out, and that will be on you, not on him.  He won’t be happy if you choose the more obstreperous path, but he’ll get over it.  So unless you want one fewer son in your life, I suggest you make your peace with me, and with us.”  He stubbed out his cigarette on the edge of a planting bed.  “That’s my best pitch, I’m afraid.  I won’t be insulted if you find it unconvincing.  I never claimed any skill at persuasion.”

Sandra took another drag, staring at the ground ahead of her.  “I don’t think I’ll ever understand how he could pick someone like you,” she said, flatly.

“The fault there is mine, in that I can’t possibly make you see what he sees in me, because I don’t know myself.  For that, you’ll have to speak to him.”  He started back to the house, pausing as he passed behind her.  “I hope that you and Arthur return in the morning.  If you do not, I can hardly blame you.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to my beta team, roane72 and mazarin221b, and to the entire Sherlock fandom for the experiences it has given me.

John stood before the mirror in their bedroom, staring at his reflection and wishing there was some way to make himself look a bit more special for the occasion.  He was wearing a new suit, he’d showered and shaved, combed his hair with a little more care than was usual, and…that was about all he could do.  He envied women, who could at least whip out fancy new makeup or an intricate hairstyle to mark a special day.  The best a man could do was buy new cologne.

It was eleven thirty.   Just a few more hours, and he’d have a husband.  He’d be a husband.  He wasn’t sure which prospect was more surreal.

Saying goodnight to Sherlock and then going into separate bedrooms had been more wrenching than he would have predicted. _Just one night_ , he’d said to himself, but he couldn’t help but think about the two months of nights he’d soon be facing alone.  They’d stood outside the bedroom, wrapped up tight, soaking in each other’s closeness.  Sherlock had kissed his forehead and pulled away with a whispered ‘good night,’ leaving John at the door like a teenager on a first date with Dad watching through the curtains.

He’d gone to bed, feeling a little sorry for himself, but as he’d lain there drifting off, the thought had occurred that the next time he was in bed with Sherlock, they’d be married.  That had helped.

He’d woken early and gone downstairs, only to discover that Harry and Sally were conspiring to keep them apart for the morning.  They’d sent Sherlock on some make-work errand into town with his brother and Greg, and John was only allowed a cup of coffee and some toast before being shooed out into the garden to supervise the rental company as they placed the chairs and tables.  Supervise, sure.  The workers had a frighteningly detailed schematic and a minute-by-minute timeline courtesy of Sally, and all John could do was stand around and try not to get in the way while they executed it.

“You the groom?” one of the workers said to him at one point.

“One of them, yeah.”

“Oh right, you’re that actor bloke.”

John smiled.  “I guess I am.”

“Sorry, no disrespect.  They just give us the work orders, I don’t even notice the names no more.  You’re marrying that other actor, the one with the hair, right?”

John grinned, gleefully anticipating telling Sherlock that he’d been referred to by a member of his adoring public as ‘the one with the hair.’  “He does have a good head of hair.”

“Too right.  Think I saw you on Jonathan Ross last year.”

“I’ve been on his show a number of times.”

The worker was giving him a speculative look.  “Gotta say, I never would have picked you out for a bender,” he said, leaning in a bit as if sharing a secret.

John snorted.  “Nor would I.  Turns out that I met the right bloke.”

“Huh,” the worker said, frowning a bit.  “D’you suppose it’s like that for anybody?”

“Meaning what?”

“That anybody could just…meet the right bloke and come over all queer?”

“I don’t know.  Probably not.”

The worker didn’t look too worried about this possibility.  “Well, congrats and all.  If it were me, being queer would be a good enough excuse to avoid marriage, but to each his own.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Now, standing in front of the mirror, the man’s words recurred.  He’d met the right bloke and come over all queer, and it had given him surprisingly little difficulty.  He’d spent some time pondering what that meant for his own identity and hadn’t come to a solid conclusion.  Was he still capable of being attracted to women?  He suspected that he was.  If he could meet a man and fall for him, what if someday he met a woman and fell for her?

He shook himself a bit.   _Wedding jitters, John.  You love Sherlock, he’s the one you want, stop jumping at shadows._

He gave his tie one last tug, nodded at his reflection – good as it’s going to get – and went downstairs.

The caterers had set up tables on the terrace with some hors d’oeuvres and Moscato.  The French doors were open; it was a beautiful, sunny day, they could not have asked for better.  John chose to take it as a sign of karmic blessing.  A few waiters were loading up trays to circulate as people arrived.  John could see Mycroft and Elizabeth, Irene, Mike, and the Findlays.  Harry and Sally were buzzing about, and his parents were standing by the wine table, by themselves.

Mike got to John first with a hearty handshake.  “John, there you are.  Any sign of cold feet?” he asked with a wink.

“Not really, no.  Could use one of those, though,” he said, nodding at the wine.  Irene appeared with a glass and handed it to him with a kiss on the cheek.  She looked flawless, as usual, in a navy sheath dress with delicate silver swirls.

“You look gorgeous,” she said.  “And like you actually slept!  Well done, you.”

“It was easy without Sherlock putting his cold feet on my shins,” John joked, glancing around for the man in question.  He didn’t see him.

“Oh, John!” Elizabeth exclaimed, holding out her hands.  John went to her and let her kiss his cheek.  “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

“It’ll do.  Looks like our luck’s holding.”

“I just keep thinking what we could have done for you at the house…the arbor in the fountain garden would have been just the spot, you know.”

John barely heard her as she babbled on about what a grand affair their wedding chez Holmes could have been, because he’d finally spotted Sherlock, standing just outside the French doors with Greg.  He was also wearing a new suit for the occasion, dove-gray with a blue-green tie that matched his eyes.  John’s stomach gave a little flip at the sight of him, his earlier musings about finding women attractive forgotten.

Sherlock looked over and caught his eye.  He dropped him a quick wink, the tips of his ears reddening a bit, and went back to his conversation with Greg.

John looked over at his parents, who were still standing side by side, not talking to anyone.  He looked around for one of his siblings, but no backup was in evidence.  Irene must have seen his jaw clench.  “You want me to handle them?” she said, quietly.

It was tempting.  “No.  I’ll deal with it.”  He downed the remainder of his wine and handed her the glass, then headed over.

In truth, he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that they’d show up at all.  Sherlock had relayed his conversation with John’s mother from the previous night.  “You said what?” had comprised the bulk of his responses, but in the end it was all for the best.  He couldn’t, wouldn’t ask Sherlock to be anyone other than who he was, and Sherlock hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true and that they hadn’t discussed.  Still, he’d considered the possibility that they’d bag on the entire wedding.  That they hadn’t was either good news or bad news, depending on how optimistic he was inclined to be at any given moment.

“Mum,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek.  “Dad.”  He held out his hand and his father shook it without discernible hesitation.  “Glad to see you.”

His mother took a breath and squared her shoulders.  “John, you know how we feel about this.  But this is what you want, and you’re our son and we love you.  We hope that you are happy.”  The statement was obviously a pre-arranged and pre-negotiated speech, given his father’s total lack of reaction to it.

John wanted to throw the words back in her face.  He wanted to shout that he didn’t give a toss how they felt about it.  He wanted to drag Sherlock over and haul him in front of them, yelling _How can you not see him as I see him, this man is amazing, how do you not understand why I might want to spend my life with him?  I love him so much, how can that be wrong?_  He wanted to keep yelling, to pummel them with words until they agreed with him and welcomed Sherlock into the family with open arms and gladness in their hearts.

But the fact was that much as he didn’t want to, he did care how they felt about it, and no amount of yelling would magically make them accepting.  Only time, if anything, could do that, and he wasn’t going to sabotage it by acting out now.

“Thanks,” he said.  “We’re both glad you’re here.”  He saw his father’s jaw twitch a little at that, but John would be damned if he’d pretend that Sherlock didn’t exist.

Thankfully, Charlie and his family came barreling up at that moment, sweeping John into their enthusiasm and distracting his parents, and he’d never been more grateful for his extroverted brother.

He spent the next hour being bounced from one sibling to the next, making quick escapes to greet friends as they arrived, beaming and well turned-out, and before he knew it, it was quarter to one and the officiant was there and Harry and Sally were starting to shoo everyone out to the garden.   John seized his opportunity and made a quick getaway to the downstairs powder room, only to find that Sherlock was already in there.  He looked up when John entered and smirked.  “You, too?”

John shut the door and just looked at him for a moment.  “You look gorgeous.”

“So do you.”

“You okay?”

“Tolerable.  All this socializing is exhausting.”

“You practically socialize for a living.”

“And it’s always exhausting.”  He wet his hand and pressed it to his forehead.  “Your parents turned up after all.”

“Yes.  They seem to have decided on ‘stoic’ as their attitude going forward.”

“I suppose that was the best we could hope for.”

“At this stage, yes.”  John heard the music start up outside.  “They’ll be looking for us in a minute.”

“Not too late to elope,” Sherlock said, his eyes twinkling.

“Oh, I rather think it might be.”

Sherlock came forward until he was right up in John’s personal space, looming over him.  “There is one little bit we could still rehearse,” he said, then started to lean down.

John reached up and stopped his advance with two fingers over his lips.  “Oh no, you don’t.  I’m not kissing you again until it’s legally sanctioned.”

Sherlock’s lips curled under John’s fingers.  “Your sense of propriety about these things is…amusing.”

“Oh, you aren’t going to pout?”

“I’ll indulge your ridiculousness for now.”

“You do realize that you’ll be indulging it for the rest of your life?”

Sherlock chuckled.  “Then you’d better make it worth my while, hadn’t you?”

John looked up at him.  “This is really it.”

The smirk bled off Sherlock’s face.  “Yes.”  He blinked, and John saw a shadow of vulnerability rise behind his eyes.  “You’re not having second thoughts?”

John smiled, slowly, and shook his head.  “No.  I’ve been unsure about a lot of things I’ve done in my life, but not about marrying you.”

“Then let’s get on with it, shall we?” The smirk was back.

John opened the bathroom door and stood aside to let Sherlock exit.  He followed him back into the living room, where Harry and Sally immediately descended on them.  “Where have you two been?  Everyone’s seated, we’re ready to go!”  Indeed, the only people still in the house were Sherlock’s mother and brother, and John’s parents.  John peeked outside – the chairs set up in the garden were full of friends and family.  He could see Paul and Jenny, and his sister Ellie with her family, and Rachel and Daniel…and oh, God, Greg and Charlie were already standing up at the front, talking with the officiant.

John caught Sherlock’s eye one more time.  “Uh…see you up there, I guess?”

“Don’t be late,” Sherlock said, dropping a wink.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock tried, he really did.  He tried to maintain his rationality and at least some degree of detachment.  He reminded himself that a marriage ceremony was a relic of the days when the joining of two humans represented either a business transaction or a religious sacrament, and he reassured himself that he needed no rituals or magic words to make his relationship with John more real.

Unfortunately, when he was finally there, standing before John and an empowered civic official, family and friends watching him, it all went out the window, and even his considerable acting skills weren’t up to the task of hiding the fact that this, as much as he despised hyperbole, really was the happiest moment of his life.

The officiant was saying something about joining, and partnerships, and some other twaddle that he barely listened to.  She asked if anyone present had any objections to the union.  Sherlock kept his eyes fixed on John, whose gaze didn’t waver.  Happily, no one stepped up, so she proceeded.

“You could join hands now,” she murmured, low, for their ears only.  Sherlock saw John chuckle a little as he reached out and took Sherlock’s hands.   _You would know that if we’d rehearsed._

But now there were vows.  Sherlock felt a weight settle into his stomach.

“John Watson, do you take this man to be your partner in all things, for the rest of your life?”

John’s eyes were reassuringly clear.  “I do,” he said.

“Sherlock Holmes, do you take this man…”

“I do,” he interrupted.  A titter ran over the audience.  “Well, I remember what she said, no need to repeat it,” he said, quietly.  John just shook his head, a wry what-have-I-gotten-myself-into smile on his face.

The officiant was smiling as she had them repeat their vows.  Love and cherish, honor and support.  She’d given them the script days ago.  Sherlock blinked away a rising sense of unreality.  He was hyper-aware of everything around him.  The drone of insects in the garden, the slight rustle of their guests’ clothing, the smell of John’s cologne. He said the words he was given, hanging on to John’s hands to keep him grounded -- yes, he was standing here, getting married, and somehow this had happened, to a person like himself.

Greg stepped forward and handed Sherlock John’s ring, as Charlie did the same for John.  John took Sherlock’s left hand and then hesitated, his lips twisting a bit.  He slid the ring onto Sherlock’s finger – he could admit to a flutter as he saw it slide into place.  “Sherlock,” John said, sounding a little choked-up.  “Take this ring as a symbol of my love and devotion.”  His voice tripped a little over the words.  He hesitated, then met Sherlock’s eyes again.  “Before I met you, if anyone had asked me if I was happy, I’d have said yes.  I didn’t know any better.  I didn’t know how happy I could be, I’d never imagined how much more was possible.  I can’t imagine life without you, and thank God I never have to.  I love you.”  He grinned and exhaled.  “Whew,” he added, under his breath.  Everyone chuckled.

Sherlock picked up John’s left hand.  He knew what he was supposed to say, but suddenly he didn’t want to stick to his lines.  Ad-libbing had never been his forte, but this was an extraordinary circumstance.  He said nothing as he placed the ring.  John looked up at him, probably wondering why he’d missed his cue.  Purely on reflex, various off-putting and deflecting remarks sprang to his lips, but he choked them back.   _If you can ever in your life manage to be sincere about what you’re feeling, do it now_ , he thought.  “John…I love you more than the words of this ritual can encompass, or this ring can symbolize, but both will have to do as I have no better way to express it that is appropriate for public consumption.”  John smirked and colored as a giggle ran over their guests.  “So accept both as an inadequate reminder, which I hope you will never need, because it is my intention to live with you in such a way that you will never need reminding.”

John squeezed his hands, beaming up at him with a little shine in his eyes that Sherlock could feel starting in the corners of his own.  The officiant smiled at them.  “John, Sherlock, you have exchanged rings and made vows before these witnesses.  It is my pleasure to pronounce you married.”  The word sent a surprising little shiver up Sherlock’s back, and he felt an answering thrum in John’s fingers.  The shiver moved over his face and became a grin; he could feel it spreading but was helpless to stop it.  He slid one hand to the back of John’s neck and pulled him in, and for all the times he’d kissed John, this was the first time he’d ever kissed his husband, and it was glorious.

He was peripherally aware of their guests applauding as John kissed him back.  He would have been content to stand there and kiss John for much longer than he was allowed, but all too soon John was pulling away.  He left a few quick kisses on Sherlock’s lips before they parted, and then he turned them both towards their guests, who were on their feet clapping for them.  Even John’s parents, while still seated, were applauding, and his mum had a slight smile on her face.   John clasped his hand and walked him back down the aisle between the chairs.  Sherlock let himself be led, feeling a bit dazed.

The house was cool and shady, and they’d no sooner gotten in the door than Sherlock turned and pulled John in, wrapped him up and kissed him again, deeper.  John wound his arms around Sherlock’s neck and kissed back, a surprised little noise escaping his throat.  “Mmm,” John said, against Sherlock’s lips.  “Had to get another one in there?”

“I wanted to stave off your inevitable buyer’s remorse for as long as possible,” Sherlock said, smirking, so John would know he was taking the piss.

“Yes, it is absolutely inevitable that I’ll regret marrying the most amazing man on earth,” John said, his grin tipping a bit giddy.

“Budge up, boys,” Harry said, bustling in after them.  “Your guests will be coming through and we’ve got the car waiting for you to go into town once everyone’s set up with liquor.”

Sherlock let John steer him into position.  Charlie came bounding in and wrapped them both up in a hug.  “Brothers!” he said.  “Can always do with one more, eh, Sherlock?”

“So far I’ve found that one was too many, but in your case I’ll make an exception.”

Greg came in and offered a more restrained one-armed hug/handshake to both of them, and they took their places as the guests began to walk through on their way to the side garden where cocktails awaited them.  Sherlock put on his best friendly smile, which was surprisingly easy.  He was feeling good-natured towards the world in general, which he could only put down to the new presence of John’s ring on his finger.

 

* * *

 

 

John watched as Charlie and Greg signed the license, followed by the officiant.  The clerk took it, then beamed at them. “Congratulations, gentlemen.  You’re legally married.”

“Thank you,” John said, shaking the man’s hand with enthusiasm.  Sherlock nodded to the clerk, already bundling John out the door, Greg and Charlie trailing behind.

Their cars were waiting outside.  “Time for a proper knees-up, then!” Charlie exclaimed, rubbing his hands together.  “Let’s get back to the party!”

Sherlock held John back a bit, waving a hand at them.  “You two go on ahead.  John and I will join you shortly.”

“Oh, you’re not coming back directly?” Greg said.

“No, we have…something to attend to first,” Sherlock said.

“We do?” John said, puzzled.

“Well, all right then,” Charlie said.  “We’ll see you back at the house.”

“Won’t be long.  Off you go, then,” Sherlock said, shooing them toward Charlie’s car.  They stood on the pavement and watched them drive off, waving.

“What do we have to attend to?” John said, letting Sherlock drag him to their own car and bundle him into the passenger seat.  He watched Sherlock dash around to the driver’s and get in.

“I am not going back to that bloody reception until I’ve had a few minutes alone with my husband,” Sherlock growled, starting up the car.  He peeled away from the registry office and drove off at inadvisable speeds.

John grinned, a little shiver passing over him at the promise in Sherlock’s tone.  “Too right,” he said, looking down at the shining ring on his left hand.  “Where are we going, then?”

“Oh, I’ve got a few secrets left,” Sherlock said, as he drove out of town and down a tiny back road.

John just watched as he took turn after turn until he was driving down what barely qualified as a road – more like a double track in the grass.  He stopped in a dense grove of trees where the road vanished into the woods.  For a beat of silence he just sat there, hands on the wheel…then he turned to meet John’s eyes, and in an instant they were both scrambling over each other, trying to get into the back seat at the same time.

“Goddammit, that’s my leg!”

“Oooof, careful with the elbow, I’m going to need that soon.”

With much giggling, swearing, and breathy exclamation they managed to spill between the seats in a tangle of limbs.  John felt himself yanked upright and then he was being kissed, gloriously kissed by Sherlock’s glorious mouth.  He grabbed him and kissed back, still laughing.  “Sherlock, what…what’s got into you?” he gasped as Sherlock left off his mouth and began sucking on John’s neck.

He drew back and fixed John with an intense look.  “John, here in this car it is just you and me, and you’ll likely hardly ever hear or see me be this free, because I don’t often let everything go.  I wanted to do it now, just right now, our first few married hours together, I wanted to show you everything, just this once.”

John just stared at him.  “Jesus.  Yeah, all right.”

Sherlock buried his face in John’s neck again.  “Because you are everything to me,” he said, in between kisses and fondles.  John just hung on, letting Sherlock do as he would.  He sucked in a breath as Sherlock slid a hand down to cup his cock through his trousers.  “I am at your mercy,” Sherlock whispered.  He slid down to his knees, awkwardly sideways in the footwell, and shoved John up to the seat so he could kneel before him.  “You could destroy me if you wished, John.  That you do not is a source of constant surprise to me,” he said, the words half-lost with his mouth against John’s belly.  He pushed John’s shirt up to kiss the skin.  “You are my obsession,” he said, almost too low to hear.

“Sherlock, God,” John groaned.

He unbuckled John’s belt and undid his flies, prodding John to lift his hips so he could slide trousers and pants down his thighs.   John tried to shove them further down past his knees, but Sherlock stopped him.  He pressed John’s thighs back into his chest, ducking underneath them and out of view.  He felt Sherlock pull his cock and bollocks from between his legs, held together by the bunched trousers, then his new husband’s mouth on his cock.  John’s head slammed back against the car door and he clutched at the seat leather, one arm wrapping under his knees to pull them further back.

“I worship you, John,” he heard Sherlock murmur, between long pulls of his mouth on John’s cock.  “I adore every last inch of you.  I want to know every cell of your body.”  John sucked in a breath as he felt one of Sherlock’s hands on his bollocks.  Not being able to see what he was doing was incredibly arousing.

“Sherlock, I’m not…not going to last…”

Sherlock didn’t let up but kept the steady, pulsating suction on John’s cock, exactly the way he knew would drive John over the edge.  With a cry and a spasm of one arm against the back window, John’s orgasm ripped through him from the top of his head to his feet.  Sherlock gentled him through it, his hands stroking John’s belly and his mouth coaxing every drop out of him.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” John groaned, sagging against the Jag’s leather seats.  Sherlock lowered John’s legs and climbed up to the seat, pillowing his head on John’s bared abdomen with his legs awkwardly folded into the footwell.  John ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.

Sherlock pressed his face against John’s skin, his breath warm and humid.  “I love you more than I knew the human mind could bear,” he whispered.  “I know I do not tell you enough, but it is only because I fear showing you its true extent.  I never used to believe that your affection for me could ever match mine for you, so I held back, even from you.”  He lifted his head, resting his chin on John’s hip, and looked up at him.  “I don’t fear your power over me anymore, because I have come to know that it is equal to mine over you.”

John smiled, tracing Sherlock’s eyebrow with one thumb.  “Mutually assured destruction.”

“So it would seem.”

John reached down and helped Sherlock shift so they were cuddled up together on the back seat, admittedly a tight fit, but John didn’t mind.  “Let me get this straight, then.  You drove us out here, making all of our wedding guests wait, so that you could give me a truly stunning blowjob and establish that we’re equally capable of smashing each other’s hearts into irreparable smithereens?”

Sherlock chuckled, the vibration passing through into John’s chest.  “It does sound a bit barmy when put like that,” he said.

John hesitated.  “I think it’s fantastic.  You are fantastic, and somebody fucking pinch me because I can’t believe I’m really married to you.”

Sherlock kissed John’s neck, hugging him a bit tighter.  “Believe it.  You are stuck with me.”

“Good.”  John wriggled a bit.  “But if we stay in this backseat much longer, I’m going to be stuck _to_ you, and I’d like to look somewhat presentable for our reception.”

“Oh, if we must,” Sherlock grumbled.  John opened the backdoor as they disentangled themselves and crawled out, pulling up his pants and trousers.

“I look a mess.”

“Here,” Sherlock said, producing some wipes from somewhere in the car, along with a comb.  John swabbed himself off a bit and straightened his clothing.  “I came prepared.”

John looked up at him.  “Actually, you didn’t come at all.  That hardly seems fair for our first married sex.”

“That was my intent.  Call it an advance.  I’ll expect a return with interest at a later time.”

John’s mouth went a bit dry at the promise in his voice.  “Later, I want you to throw me on my back, spread my legs and pound me until I scream myself hoarse.”

Sherlock swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard with it.  “I’ll…take that under advisement.”

John seized his face.  “Don’t think I don’t know what it cost you to say those things in the car.  Don’t think I’m not aware of what’s in your heart even if you don’t say it.  You don’t have to say it, but I loved hearing it.”  He kissed him, hard.  “And know that I love you, so much.”

“I do know,” Sherlock said.

“Good.”  John sighed, taking a step back to comb his hair.  “I must say, so far I’m finding marriage pretty great.”

Sherlock chuckled.  “Hold that thought for when tax time rolls around.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my betas, roane72 and mazarin221b.

Everyone was in the side garden when they returned to the house.  A general whoop and cheer went up at their appearance.  John grabbed Sherlock’s hand and raised it over their heads as if he’d just won a prizefight; Sherlock fought mightily not to roll his eyes.  Instead, he just smiled indulgently and started looking for the bar.

Irene appeared at his side with a glass of wine with her usual clairvoyant timing..  “Take a little detour on the way back, did we?” she purred, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

“I’m quite sure you were not present,” Sherlock replied, watching as John was swallowed up by his siblings and their broods.  “How are…things?” he said, with a little glance at John’s parents, who were sitting alone at a table with pints in front of them, not talking to anyone.

“Well, they haven’t said anything abominable.  Probably due to the fact that they’ve said nothing at all.”

“I suppose that’s the best we can hope for.”

“I suppose it is.”  She clinked the rims of their wineglasses together.  “So, how does it feel to be a husband?”

“Much the same as it felt to be a fiancé, thanks.”

She examined his face.  “Liar.  You do feel different.”

Sherlock sighed.  “I didn’t expect to.”

“It means something, doesn’t it?”

“It shouldn’t.   A signed document?  The blessing of a state official?  A piece of understated jewelry?”  She raised an eyebrow at him.  “Yes, it means something.  Much to my surprise.  I’m…”  He stopped and cleared his throat.  “He is mine forever now,” he said, quietly, watching the back of John’s head as he talked to his sister.

“I think he has been for a long time.”

Sherlock felt the wine loosening him up a bit -- or perhaps it was the candor of his companion.  “It’s…humbling.”

“What is?”  

“To realize that I am…”

“Not above it?  Not impervious to love?”

“That I am not, in fact, doomed to live without it.”

He saw Irene’s breath catch a little.  “You thought that you were?”

“That was the assumption, and it went thirty-four years without serious challenge.”

“Did you think, when you met, that he’d be the challenge?”

“The thought never entered my mind.  It’d be nice to pretend at the love-at-first-sight trope, or to now claim that there was an instantaneous connection, but it isn’t true.  My best hope at first was that I’d tolerate him.  I never expected this.”  He watched John, laughing as he talked to their guests, his wide smile beaming, until he realized that Irene had been silent for too long.  He looked down at her.  “What?”

She shook her head a little, smiling.  “It’s just…I know we haven’t known each other all that long, Sherlock, but I just wanted to say that I’m happy for you.  Maybe happier than I am for John.”

“Why?”

“Because you needed it more.”

He opened his mouth to object.  Surely she had that backwards.  He had been fine when he’d met John.  Independent, solitary – self-reliant.

Before he could get the first word out, he saw her arched eyebrow and the twinkle in her eye and knew she was two steps ahead.  He sighed.  “Yes.  Yes, I did.”

 

* * *

 

 

John had downed a full glass of wine already and was feeling pleasantly mellow, in addition to floating on a cloud of happy euphoria every time the gleam of his new wedding ring caught his eye.

“Don’t forget to eat something,” Ellie said, shoving a crab canape at him.  “At my wedding, I was so caught up talking to everyone and making sure everybody was having fun that I forgot to eat.  Almost passed out.”

“I remember,” John said, popping the whole canapé in his mouth.  “Fuck, that’s delicious.  Trust Irene to find a world-class caterer out here in Hailsham.”

“Like you couldn’t afford to get someone to come down from town,” she said, grinning and sucking down a crab canapé herself.  She looked around.  “It is lovely here, John.  I can’t believe you haven’t had us down here to visit before now!”  She punched his arm.

“Ow!  When have we had time to entertain houseguests?”

“All right, fair enough.”

John looked around.  “Say, I haven’t seen Liam, where’d he get off to?”

“I think he’s inside, in the den.  You know how he is around lots of strangers.  That boy could find a corner in a round room.”

John swallowed the canapé.  “Is that all it is?”

Ellie looked at him, then away.  “Maybe not.”

“I thought he was feeling better about his gay uncle.”

“He was.  It comes and goes.  It’s been all over the Internet that this wedding was happening, and some of his friends…well.”  She looked very uncomfortable with the entire topic.

John sighed.  “Maybe I should go talk to him.”

“I think that might help,” Ellie said, giving him an encouraging smile.

John turned to head indoors, but Charlie grabbed his arm and pulled him aside before he could get far.  “John, Mum and Dad have asked when I can take them home.”

John’s heart sank.  “We haven’t even had dinner yet!  You wouldn’t be back for two hours, you’re supposed to give a speech!”

“I told them I’d take them after we eat.”

John looked over at his parents, both of them studiously avoiding looking at anyone or anything, and he was just so tired of all of it.  “Fuck them, I don’t care.  If they want to leave now, let them, but I’m not letting them drag you away.  Have Harry call them a bloody cab if they can’t bear to be here another minute.  I’m going to go find Liam.”  He pulled away from Charlie and headed into the house.  He turned when he reached the door and caught Sherlock’s eye across the garden.  Sherlock tilted his head and asked him a silent question with one eyebrow:   _all right?_  John gave him a small nod, then went inside.

He found Liam in the den, tucked into a corner of the couch with his nose in a book.  John hesitated, then went and sat down on the other end of the couch.  Liam glanced up at him.

“Hey,” he said, hoping he sounded casual.

“Hi.”  Liam barely glanced up from his book.

“What are you reading?”  John cocked his head so he could read the title.  “Narnia, huh?  I used to love those when I was a kid.”

“Yeah.  I know I’m too old for them, but they’re my favorites.”

“You’re never too old for your favorite books.”  John hesitated, hoping he didn’t say the wrong thing and fall through the thin ice he was treading on.  “You think we could talk for a bit?”

Liam looked up at him, marked his page and put his book aside.  “Okay.”

“I know this is all a bit weird for you.”

He shrugged.  “It’s fine.”

“It’s okay if you feel uncomfortable.  I’m sorry we’ve never really gotten to talk about this.”

“You’re busy and all that.”

“This must have seemed awfully sudden to you.  Honestly, it was sudden for me, too.  In some ways, I’m still getting used to it.”

Liam smiled, like John’s admission eased his mind.  “Yeah, it was like one day you were dating girls, then the next day you were dating boys.”

“I guess I just met the right boy.”  John watched Liam’s face.  “So is there anything you want to ask me?  Anything at all.  It’s just you and me, you don’t have to be shy.  I promise, nothing you could ask will make me angry.”

Liam looked at him hard for a moment, like he was trying to suss out if John were serious.  “You promise?”

“Pinky swear.”

Liam looked down at his hands, his fingers restlessly twisting, before meeting John’s eyes again.  “Do I have to like him?” he said, his expression full of skepticism.

John had to chuckle a little.  “No, you don’t have to like him, if you honestly don’t.  You do have to be civil and polite to him.  And…well, it would really make me happy if you could give him a chance, right?  Maybe try to like him?  I know he seems a bit odd at first, but he’s really an interesting person, and he knows a lot of things about a lot of things.”  Liam frowned.  “You think you can give it a go?”

He sighed.  “Yeah.  I mean, I guess he can’t be that bad, if you like him.”

“I like him okay,” John said, teasingly.

Liam laughed.  “I guess you more than just like him, huh?”

John nodded.  “Yeah, I do.  I love him.  Good thing, too, since I just married him.”

“I know it’s not supposed to be a big deal and I’m supposed to be happy for you and supportive and stuff.”

“Liam, you’re going to feel however you feel.  You can’t control that.  You can only control what you do about it.  That’s what’s important.  You feel uneasy about me being with a man.  Are you saying that you hate me?  Or that you don’t want to see me anymore?”

Liam looked shocked at the idea.  “No!”

“No, you’re not.  You’re asking questions and talking about it and trying to deal with it.  That’s a good thing.”

His face scrunched up as he processed what John was saying.  “So…I kinda don’t get it.”

“Okay.  What don’t you get?”

“You liked girls but now you don’t?  It can just…change like that?”

John winced internally.  He didn’t know how to explain it for his twelve-year-old nephew’s ears, but he supposed he had to make the attempt.  “It isn’t that simple.  I didn’t change, I just met the person I’m supposed to be with, and it worked out that the person I’m supposed to be with is a man, and that’s okay with me.  If it weren’t okay with me, well, he wouldn’t be the person for me.  Some boys like girls, some boys like boys, and some boys like both.  I dated girls before, but I never met anybody I really liked a lot.”

“And then you met Sherlock?”

“Yep, then I met Sherlock.  He was special.  It didn’t really matter to me that he was a boy.  It mattered to me who he was, and how I felt about him.”

“But it would matter to some people?”

“Yes, to some people it matters if you’re a girl or a boy.  That’s okay, too.”

“So, when you kiss him and stuff…is it like it would be with a girl?”

“I guess it is, yeah.”

Liam puffed out his cheeks in frustration.  “I’m talking about sex, you know?”

John laughed.  “Well, I wasn’t sure.  You’re kind of young.”

Liam rolled his eyes.  “I know what it _is_.”

“Okay, fair enough.  Me and Sherlock are like any other couple who’s married or living together.”

“So you have sex.”

“Yes.”

“But…how?”  Liam blinked in confusion.

John sighed.  “Liam, I don’t know how much your parents would be comfortable with me telling you.  If you want to, we could all talk about it together.”

Liam looked horrified at that idea.  “With Mum and Dad?  Are you mad?”

“I guess I must be,” John said, laughing.

“It isn’t that important.  I can just Google it, anyway.”

The idea of his nephew Googling “gay sex” filled John with horror, but he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and therefore ensure that he’d go looking.  Anyway, at his age, if he hadn’t Googled sex yet, he would be doing so soon.  “Listen, Liam.  Your dad’s told me that you’ve had some bad times at school, with your mates taking the piss.  I’m really sorry about that.  It isn’t right, and I hate it that anything I’ve done would make things rough for you.”

Liam shrugged.  “It isn’t the first time.  Most people think it’s cool that you’re all famous, but sometimes my mates would make fun of your movies.”

John nodded.  “Sometimes grown-ups make fun of them too.”

“So this was just something else.  And everyone’s sort of left off of that a bit.  It isn’t so bad.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear that.”

Liam shifted and looked away.  “Granddad and Grandma don’t like it.”

“I know.”

“I heard Granddad say something once that he didn’t want you around me, and Mike and Luke.”

John bit the inside of his cheek and took a moment.  “Granddad has some old, wrong ideas that aren’t true at all.  And it’s okay for us to disagree with him.”

“I don’t like it when he says bad things about you.”

“It’s okay for you to tell him that, too.  You get to have your own opinions and thoughts about things, no matter what Granddad says.”

“Okay.”  Liam fiddled with the tassels on a pillow, his brow furrowed.  “Do I have to call him Uncle Sherlock?”

John laughed, then slid over and hugged Liam with one arm.  “Only if you want to.”

The sliding door into the house opened and Peter stepped in.  “Hey, Liam, Mike’s looking for you.  I think he found a cricket ball and wants to toss it around, or something.”

Liam jumped up.  “Okay!  Bye, Uncle John.”

“Bye,” John said, as the boy ran inside.

Peter chuckled and handed John another glass of wine.  “Ta,” John said.  “Although at this rate, I’ll be pissed by dinner.”  Peter sat down next to him.

“It was real nice, that,” he said.

“What was?”  John’s head was feeling a bit muzzy.

Peter blinked.  “You know, the…that thing we just did, with the rings and what not?” he said, winking.

“Oh!  Too right, yeah.  Was nice, wasn’t it?”  John let his head fall back, feeling his body starting to crash after days of adrenaline.  Peter glanced at him, then away again.  John looked at him.  “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, come on, what?  What’s on your mind?”

“It’s stupid.”

John watched his brother’s face.  “It’s okay, Petey.  You can ask the question.”

“What question?”

“Oh, don’t play innocent.  The same question every guy wants to ask but usually doesn’t.”

“Which is?”

“What’s it like to shag a bloke.”

Peter harrumphed.  “Oh, I uh…I wasn’t going to…I mean, I didn’t…”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Okay, I did.  I reckon I’m a bit curious.”

“Curious?” John teased, lifting one eyebrow.

Peter laughed.  “Not curious like that!”

“I know, I’m just winding you up.”

“Thanks, wanker.  I mean, I know some gay blokes, but it’s not something you just bring up over a pint, you know?”

Peter fell silent, but John sensed him fidgeting under his skin.  He just waited, letting him come around to it on his own.  “So it’s…it’s good, then?  With him, I mean?”

John chuckled.  “I knew what you meant.  And yeah.  It’s good.  Better than good.”  Peter looked a little befuddled at this.  “Actually, it isn’t all that different.”

“Seems pretty different to me.”

“It really isn’t.  It might be different bits and bobs, but the feelings are the same.”

“Yeah.  I get that.  It is a lot of change in a short time, though.”

“It is.  But honestly, where I am now?  I don’t know how I went my whole life without this.  I can’t imagine life without him.”

Peter held his gaze for a moment, then smiled.  “Good job you’re married to him, then, isn’t it?”

John grinned.  “Yeah, it is.”

Peter took a long pull on his ale.  “I dunno, mate.  I still don’t know if I could give up tits, even for my soulmate.”

John laughed.  “I do sometimes miss tits.”

“If only he could manage tits along with everything else, eh?”

“Well, nobody’s perfect.”

“I dispute that assertion,” came Sherlock’s voice.  He walked in and stood next to John’s chair, laying a hand on John’s shoulder.  John was suddenly and intensely glad to see him.  He picked up Sherlock’s hand and kissed the knuckles.

“Yes, you’re perfect, we know,” he said.

“I’ll not disabuse you of the notion, but I was referring to you.”

“Aww, that’s sweet,” Peter drawled.

“He’s buttering me up.  What’s on, then?”

“You are conspicuous in your absence from your own wedding reception,” Sherlock said.

“Yeah, sorry.  Got a bit distracted.”

“And a bit sluggish on your third glass of wine,” Sherlock said, smirking.

John shook his head, chuckling.  “This is my life from now on, Pete.  Can’t put anything over on this one.”  They all stood and went back out to the garden.  John did feel a bit unsteady on his feet, a fact that did not escape Sherlock, who kept one hand on the small of his back.  “Christ, I better eat something,” he muttered.

“They’re seating everyone for dinner now.”

“Smashing.”  He stopped in the doorway and turned to face him.  “You are so…brilliant,” he said, smiling.  “God, I’m fucking lucky.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “You turn soppy with a little wine in you.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”  John kissed him and gripped his hand, two fingers finding the new ring there.  Sherlock’s lips curved in a smile against his.  “Are you happy?” John whispered.

An impatient sigh was the immediate reaction.  Sherlock drew back far enough to meet his eyes.  “I believe we agreed that you were going to stop fishing for declarations from me.  Have I not satisfied your desire for unfiltered sentiment for the day?”

“Yes, and more.  I just…you’re right.  Forget it.”  John started to head into the garden but Sherlock held him back, then bent with his lips close to John’s ear.

“I am, and it’s all your fault.”  John could hear the smirk in Sherlock’s voice.

“Good,” he said, grinning, and he took Sherlock’s hand and led him back to their wedding reception.


	10. Chapter 10

The evening went as smoothly as could be expected.

Charlie and Greg each gave a brief speech, light on the idiocy, to Sherlock’s relief.  Greg’s was unexpectedly touching, and Charlie actually got in a subtle dig or two at John’s parents, who were sitting at their table, sticking out like unsmiling sore thumbs amidst their beaming children and grandchildren.  John kept hold of Sherlock’s hand during all this ritual, laughing and presenting the very picture of just-married contentment.

Sherlock had expected that he’d tolerate all of this for John’s sake.  That he’d plaster his “polite company” smile onto his face, nodding and laughing when appropriate.  What he hadn’t expected was that he’d be doing these things with sincerity, instead of grudging resignation.  It was actually _pleasant_ to see Sally laughing with the Findleys, to see John’s (and now his, he supposed) nieces and nephews playing and dancing, to see Irene relaxed and Greg without a contract in his pocket.  But all this was nothing to how fantastic it was to see John, hugging his friends and family, beaming and glowing and constantly fiddling with his new ring and to know that he, Sherlock Holmes, the coldest fish in the ocean, had made him look that way.

Dinner gave way to dancing.  The tables were moved about and the cake was cut – happily without any “feeding each other cake” nonsense, which John hadn’t even needed to be told would not be looked upon with favor – and the champagne flowed.

Daniel approached him as he watched John dancing with Rachel, both of them giggling as they spun each other around the floor.  “Congratulations,” he said, shaking Sherlock’s hand.  “Lovely afternoon.”

“Yes, it has been, hasn’t it?  Pleased you could make it.”

“Took a bit of doing, but Rachel was insistent.  She’s so fond of John.”

“As he is of her.”

Daniel hesitated.  “I ran into Alan at that Givenchy party and he said that John’s been offered a role in the new Potter films.”

“Offered and accepted.  John’s always wanted to play a wizard.”

“Big commitment.”

“It’s a supporting role, but he’ll have it for however many films they make.  Personally, I’d have waited for a script, but John’s enjoying the momentum after he signed with the Coens.”

Daniel smirked at him.  “Is it possible that you’re peeved they didn’t offer you a role?”

Sherlock snorted.  “Not remotely.”  Daniel just looked at him, one eyebrow raised.  “Even if they had, I wouldn’t have taken it.  John and I have agreed not to co-star again for a long time.”

“You must have people beating down the door to get you to do that.”

“Indeed.  Some of the ideas have even been tempting.  But we’ve sworn to wait at least five years.”  He sighed.  “I can’t imagine anything ever matching the experience of our first collaboration.  I’m rather loathe to try for it and be disappointed.”

“I know the feeling.”

The song ended and Rachel kissed John’s cheek, then they came over to where Sherlock and Daniel stood.  “Here’s a pair of handsome movie stars,” Rachel said, giggling, color high in her cheeks.  “Shall we claim our own back?” she said to John.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” John said, taking Sherlock’s hand.  “Dream a Little Dream of Me” came over the sound system and he pulled Sherlock onto the dance floor.  “I’ve yet to dance with my husband.”

Sherlock blew air through his teeth.  “You’re determined to make me do this, aren’t you?” he muttered, low into John’s ear.

“Shut up, it’s our wedding reception.”

Sherlock gave in -- as if there’d been another possibly outcome -- and swung John into his arms.  “Same-sex equality aside, I still think two men dancing like this just…looks silly.  That’s an equality I’ll happily forego.”

John laughed.  “Normally I’d agree, but indulge me this once.”

“This once.”   Sherlock met his eyes and smiled.  John’s face went a bit dreamy, and he tucked his head down against Sherlock’s neck and pulled him closer as they moved together to the music.  Sherlock sensed their guests all watching, and their photographer snapping photos, but he couldn’t be arsed to care.  He had John in his arms and the day had gone off better than he could have hoped, and that was cause for celebration.

 

* * *

 

The guests began to trickle out around seven o’clock.  Sarah and Anthea were first to leave; they had to get back to London where little Sophie was staying with the nanny.  “I love seeing you happy like this,” Sarah whispered in John’s ear as she hugged him goodbye.  “Don’t ever stop.”

“I’ll try,” he whispered back.  “Kiss that gorgeous baby from her Uncle John.”

Paul and Jenny left soon after, with more hugs and kisses and well-wishes, then Mycroft declared it time that he got their mother back to his townhome in London.  She hugged John so tightly he began to fear for his air supply.  “You boys visit often,” she said.  “I mean it.”

“I can’t thank you enough for looking after my parents,” John said, quietly.  Elizabeth had spent a significant portion of the evening chatting with the Watsons…or, more accurately, at them.

“They’ll come around,” she said, her tone turning serious for a moment.  “It’s not always easy.  Try to be patient.”

“I will,” he said.

“They love you very much.  That will win in the end.”

“I hope you’re right.”

With a kiss for Sherlock, she and Mycroft were out the door, Sally following them with their bags.  “We’d best be off, too,” Peter said, holding a sleeping toddler against his shoulder.  “The kids have had it.  We’re going to take Mum and Dad with us – Charlie wants to stay for awhile longer.”

“Thanks, Pete.”  John braced himself as his parents approached, coats on.  “Mum, Dad.  Thanks for coming.”

His mother nodded.  “It wasn’t…what I expected.”

“What did you expect, then?” John said, bristling a bit.  He was tempted to ask if she’d been expecting go-go dancing boys and he and Sherlock in full drag while Erasure played them up the aisle.

“I don’t know.  It was so…normal.”

“That’s because we _are_ normal, Mum.”  His dad made a throat-clearing sort of noise that stopped short of full-on nonverbal dissent, but he still shook John’s hand.  

“Be seeing you before you head back, then?” he said, looking everywhere but at John.

“Probably.  Sherlock leaves for Prague this week and I don’t have to be back in LA until next week.”

He nodded, then tugged on his wife’s sleeve to hurry her along.  She stopped in front of Sherlock, squared her jaw, and stuck out her cheek.  John saw Sherlock cast him a quick, incredulous glance before bending to kiss it.  “Goodnight,” he said.

John could only watch as his parents followed Peter and Leah out the door.  He slipped his hand into Sherlock’s.  “Maybe there’s hope for them,” he said, quietly.

“Under normal circumstances I’d be pessimistic, but the last year of my life seems to have reoriented me toward the optimistic, so I’m inclined to agree.”

John sighed, enjoying the quiet moment.  “Well, let’s get back and wind this down.  I’m starting to wish all these people weren’t here right now,” he said, tossing Sherlock a flirty glance.

Sherlock pulled him along toward the garden.  “We’ll cut off the alcohol.  That’ll clear the place out in a tic.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, it took another two hours to get everyone on their way home.  Isabelle had been allowed some wine and kept singing along with the music, flouncing around the small dance floor like Gloria Swanson.  Irene insisted on having the photographer take some staged photos, although they’d already done “official” wedding photos.  Greg and Mike were plotting darkly in a corner, taking notes on napkins – John was afraid to ask.

As she was leaving, Irene came up to John and showed him her phone – it was a Tweeted photo that was trending fast.  It was an out-of-focus shot, taken from a distance and probably with a cell phone camera, but it unambiguously showed himself and Sherlock getting into the Jaguar outside the clerk’s office in Hailsham.  The Tweet read “Looks like wedding rumors for Sherlock and John were true!”

“Don’t show that to Sherlock,” John said.  “He’s been paranoid enough as it is that someone would find us here.  He’ll start fretting that someone’s followed us to the house.”

“A paparazzo might, but this isn’t a pap photo, look at the image quality.  This is someone who happened to be walking by when you guys came out.  I doubt they’d leap into a car to give chase.”  She smirked.  “Anyway, didn’t you two take a little _detour_ before coming back here?”

“We did, indeed, and I’m bloody positive nobody followed us there.”

She grinned, slipping her arms into her coat and pocketing the phone.  “Well, it’s been a lovely day, darling.  I shall have a busy one tomorrow, answering all the press inquiries.”

“Which you will do with your usual graceful balance between accommodating and fuck-off.”

“A skill required of every decent publicist.”  She kissed John’s cheek.  Sherlock was busy bidding goodbye to Greg.  “Kiss your husband goodnight for me, I’ll just be off.”  She waggled her fingers at him and slipped out.

And then his remaining siblings were bundling up their children and the caterers had loaded their van and gone, the hired staff were finishing the cleanup and making discreet exits, and all of a sudden Charlie was the last one in the house, pausing to give John a huge, ale-fueled bear hug.  “Please tell me Deb’s driving,” John said.

“Bloody right,” Charlie slurred.  “Thanks, Johnny…thanks for asking me,” he said, pulling back and clapping John’s shoulders.  “Petey had his mate stand up with him, and I just…so glad I got to be up there with you.”

John nodded along with Charlie’s head bobs.  “Glad you were there.”

“And you,” Charlie said, moving over to Sherlock and grabbing him by the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger half a step.  “You’re all right for a…a bloke, and all,”

Sherlock kept a poker face.  “Kind of you to say.”

He hugged them both again, then Deb returned and shot them an apologetic smile as she pulled him out the door, waving back at them.

And then the door was shut, the cars were gone, and they were…alone.

John just stood there for a moment, in shock.  “God, are they really all gone?”

Sherlock cocked his head, listening.  “All gone.”  He met John’s eyes.  “Just you and me.”

John’s shoulders sagged.  “Thank God.”  He grabbed Sherlock and hauled him in; Sherlock’s long fingers wrapped around his head and they kissed, hard and messy and hungry.  “Because I have been waiting all day for this.”

“You planning to carry me over a threshold?” Sherlock said against his lips, chuckling.

“I’ll do you one better.”  John bent, socked his shoulder under Sherlock’s midsection, pulled his arm over his back and lifted, all in one motion; Sherlock’s feet left the ground and he was over John’s shoulder.  Sherlock let out a loud, surprised, squawk.  “Ha HA!” John crowed, triumphant.  He headed for the staircase.

“John, this is ridiculous, put me down at once.  You can’t possibly carry me up the stairs.”

“Watch me.”  He wasn’t about to let on that this was actually a little harder than he’d anticipated.  Although six inches taller, Sherlock only outweighed him by a few pounds – the man was too bloody skinny.  Still, it wasn’t a tiny man he had slung over his shoulder, and his height made him unwieldy.  John tromped doggedly up the stairs, undeterred.

“Is this your inner caveman asserting itself, hauling me back to your lair to have your way with me?”

“Oh, my, you make it all sound so sordid, when here we are, legally wed.”

“I must say, the indignity of this position notwithstanding, I do have a marvelous view,” Sherlock said, the smirk audible in his voice.

“Are you staring at my arse?”

“I can’t really avoid it.”

John had reached the bedroom.  He went straight for the bed and dumped Sherlock off onto it, a bit less gracefully than he might have wished.  He leaned over and kissed him again.  “Much as I’d like for you to make good on what you promised me earlier, I’d like to shower first.”

“Perhaps I should as well.”

“Don’t you dare,” John said, ducking his head down into the hollow of Sherlock’s shoulder.  “You smell divine.”

“You like me a little worn around the edges, don’t you?”

“I like to smell _you_ , not the shower gel.”

“Suppose I like the same?”

“You’ll have your chance.”  He kissed the tip of his nose.  “Be right back.”

Sherlock snaked one finger into John’s waistband and gave it a tug.  “Don’t be long.”

“Oh, Christ,” John groaned, then tore himself away.

He conducted his shower business as quickly as humanly possible, seeing visions of Sherlock’s shirt buttons straining.  He wondered what he’d find when he returned to the bed – would he find Sherlock, naked, sprawled elegantly over the duvet, stroking himself and ready for him?  Would he still be dressed, so that he could favor John with a striptease?  The possibilities were tantalizing.

He rocketed out of the shower and toweled off, then emerged naked, half-hard in anticipation – but of all the alluring imagery he’d imagined, nothing could have prepared him…for the sight of Sherlock, lying flat on his back in bed with the covers pulled primly up to his chest, chin tucked down into his neck as he stared at his phone.  

He cleared his throat.  “Uh…”

Sherlock grunted.  John couldn’t even tell if that were an acknowledgment or a rebuttal.

He sighed and went around to his side of the bed, dropping the towel as he went.  His nakedness must not have been very impressive, as Sherlock didn’t even look up.  He got into bed, pique rising.  He propped up on one elbow and stared down at his bedmate, who was still engrossed in his phone.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” he finally said.

“I won’t.”  Not even a glance.

John flopped onto his back.   _You signed up for this_ , he berated himself.  “Would it be too much to ask that you focus on _me_ on our wedding night?”

“Don’t be mawkish, John.  This is just the latest of the several hundred nights we’ve spent together, and the first in what we’ve just declared will be thousands more.”

“Not even you are this obtuse.  You were completely on board with it twenty minutes ago!”

“Call it sentiment hangover from the day.  I’m over it.”

John sat up.  “I cannot believe that you are really just going to lie there on your phone and…”  Sherlock’s eyes cut toward him for the briefest second, but long enough for John to see the devilish little twinkle.  His mouth dropped open.  “Oh, you fucker,” he said.

Sherlock tossed his phone away without another glance, grabbed John and flipped him over, rolling on top of him.  Before John could even get his bearings, he was being kissed, hard and deep.  He grabbed at Sherlock and got a good handful of his arse; he gave it a pinch.  Sherlock yelped.  “Oi, that’s attached, you know.”

“Serves you right,” John said, nibbling down Sherlock’s neck.  “I can’t believe I fell for that.”

“So I’m to blame for your gullibility?”

John glared up at him for a moment, then slid his hands up Sherlock’s sides, going right for the kill.  “Now you’re in for it,” he said.

“Gah!” Sherlock said, writhing and gasping.  “Damn it, John!”

John kept tickling him until he could get a knee underneath and flip them over.  He pinned Sherlock’s hands above his head and looked down into his face, flushed with laughter and unshuttered.  His expression softened as John held his gaze.  John rubbed his finger against Sherlock’s wedding ring.  “This was the best day of my life,” he said, quietly.

Sherlock smirked, but he looked touched.  “Better than the Oscars?”

“No contest.”  John kissed him again, slowly, relishing the way Sherlock’s lips softened and responded, drawing him closer.  “But if we don’t consummate this marriage, and I mean right now, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

Sherlock didn’t bother to respond in words, he just pulled John close, wrapped him up and kissed him deeply.  He pushed him over onto his back again and settled between his legs; John felt Sherlock’s erection pressing against his own and canted his hips up to maximize the contact.  Sherlock groaned into his mouth.  “I need to be inside you,” he whispered into John’s ear.

“God yes, what have I been saying,” John gasped, wrapping his legs around Sherlock’s thighs.

It all got a bit hazy and muddled after that.  There was lube and hands and fingers and kisses, warm bodies and murmured words, Sherlock’s eyes glowing in the dim bedroom and finally the moans and sharp inhales as they joined.  Sherlock braced one hand against the headboard and took him hard, each thrust clenching his arse tight under John’s hands as he gripped him and pulled him closer.  “John, I’m…not going to last,” Sherlock said.

“It’s okay,” John said, kissing his face and winding himself tighter around him.  “I want you to do it.  Come in me, don’t worry about me for now, let me see your face, look at me…”  He held Sherlock’s gaze as they rocked together.

Sherlock shook his head.  “No.  I want to make you come first.”  He wrapped a hand around John’s cock and stroked it root to tip as he worked his hips in circles, which always drove John wild.  He grabbed at Sherlock’s shoulders and hung on, his neck arching as he spurted over his own belly with a cry.

Sherlock was pulling out before John had even come down.  He let himself be manhandled onto his hands and knees and then Sherlock was back inside him with a groan.  John reached back and gripped Sherlock’s hip as he thrust hard, his large hands wrapped around the fronts of John’s thighs, spreading him and holding him up.  “Harder,” he gasped.  “Come on, fuck me.”  Sherlock didn’t reply, he just complied.  John braced his hands on the headboard and let his head droop down; he could see his own cock bouncing between his legs and Sherlock’s bollocks behind his.

Sherlock had gone mostly nonverbal, his thrusts punctuated by the occasional gasp of John’s name or a bitten-off curse.  John pushed back, tightening around him, wanting to pull him over the edge…Sherlock grabbed John’s hips and thrust deep with a shout; he came with a shudder and a groan and fell heavily forward onto John’s back.  John went down to his elbows, then started to turn over, giving Sherlock space to pull out.  He rolled to his back and pulled Sherlock close, kissing his forehead and his cheeks and any part of his face he could reach.

They lay there in silence for some time, Sherlock draped across John’s chest.  John let his fingers track aimless paths across Sherlock’s smooth skin, his mind delightfully blank.  Sherlock had twined their free hands together and was idly playing with John’s fingers.

“This is, bar none, the most optimistic thing I’ve ever done,” Sherlock murmured.

“How so?”

“People in our line of work tend to have difficulty with relationship permanence.  I’m naturally inclined to look at the data and conclude that our odds of lasting aren’t favorable.”

“Why did you do it, then?”

“I can be aware of the statistics, I can see the challenges and the many ways things can go awry, and I am still convinced that we are the exception, and that we will somehow succeed where so many others, equally devoted, have failed.”  He lifted his head and met John’s eyes.  “I believe that’s what’s called ‘magical thinking.’  It is generally believed to be a failing of the human condition.”

John shook his head.  “No.  That’s what’s called ‘faith,’ and it is a strength.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment.  “I suppose I’ve taken a leap of faith, then.”

“We’ve taken one together.”

Sherlock snuggled a little closer.  “Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t frighten me.”

 

* * *

 

_five days later…_

 

John had spent the entire morning (and most of the previous night, actually) with a heavy, cold weight in the pit of his stomach.  He’d resisted getting out of bed, like a little boy hoping that if he just didn’t open his eyes, the day would not start.  Sherlock had been up with the sun and moving around, packing the last of his things.  They hadn’t exchanged more than a few cursory words.  It felt easier.

_It’s only two months._

Two months.  It sounded like forever.  The way he felt at this moment, he was starting to wonder if he’d last two days.  Hell, two _hours._

He was feeling intensely resentful of how much of their “honeymoon” they’d given over to their jobs.  Shortly after the wedding, a crew from “60 Minutes” had arrived and they’d spent an entire day talking to Diane Sawyer and shooting B-roll around the grounds.  The day after that, a photographer had come and shot them for a spread in “The Advocate,” and John still couldn’t believe Irene had gotten them to agree to _that_ , although it had produced John’s favorite of any photograph taken of them.  All in all, it felt like the time had zoomed by with this date looming ever nearer and now it was here, and John just wanted one more day.

Sherlock stood in the doorway and glanced at his watch.  “Sally will be here in a few minutes,” he said, as if John were not keenly aware of the passing of each second.

John nodded, staring at his tea.  “I’m…it’s possible that I might cry,” he finally said.

“Is that a warning or an invitation?”

John laughed, but choked it off quickly.  “Don’t make me laugh.  Don’t do anything charming or wonderful or unexpected.  Don’t be amazing for the next few minutes, okay?”

Sherlock’s shadow fell across him, then he knelt, took the teacup from him and gripped his hands.  “We’ll call.  And Skype.”

John nodded.  They’d been saying those same hollow words for weeks, and he found them even less comforting now.  “Sure.  It’ll be exactly like you aren’t thousands of miles away.”

The front door opened.  “Sherlock?”  John’s gut froze.  It was the voice of finality.  Sally was here to take him to the airport.

“Be right there,” Sherlock called back.

“Are these bags here going?”

“Yes.”  Sherlock got up and pulled John to his feet.  He followed along into the entryway.  Sherlock looked around, his expression a bit lost, as if he were wondering what he’d forgotten to pack.  “I…I think I have everything.”

“Do you have all your chargers?”

“Yes.  I’ve got my scripts, and my phone…”

“Passport?”

“Yes.”

Sally poked her head in.  “Are you ready?”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” Sherlock said.  Sally glanced from him to John, then nodded and went outside.

John lifted his head and met Sherlock’s eyes.  “I feel sick.”

“We’ll be all right.”

“You sound awfully sure about that.”

“Faith, remember?  Something my husband told me about.”

“Oh, God.  I’m sorry.  I should be all strong and stoic and sending you off with hugs and smiles and best wishes and I’m failing.  I’m absolute _pants_ at husband.”

“Perhaps you could manage the hug?”  Sherlock gave him a weak smile.

“Shite,” John muttered, and put his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders.  They hugged for a moment, a careful embrace lest the moment shatter and toss them both into the wind.

Sherlock pulled away and squeezed John’s hand.  He kissed his forehead.  “I’ll text you when I get settled.”

John nodded, misery rising in his throat and crowding out his breath.  He felt like gasping for air, but it would look stupid.  “Even if it’s the middle of the night.  Wake me.”

“Have a safe trip back to L.A.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

Sherlock lifted a hand to John’s cheek and looked into his eyes, and John saw that he was hurting, too.  He didn’t want to go, any more than John wanted him to.  But then he shifted his gaze and stepped away and he was going, anyway.

John watched the door close.

A beat of silence passed before John’s paralysis broke.  He lunged for the door and hurled himself into the dooryard.  Sherlock looked up from where he stood by the car door, saw John’s face, and ran back to meet him halfway.  John seized him with a half-swallowed sob, feeling Sherlock wrap him up tightly and bury his face in John’s neck.  “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I don’t want to go,” Sherlock said.  He drew back a little and held John’s face in his hands, kissing it over and over.  He pulled him back into his arms for another embrace, nothing careful about this one, just a desperate, last-chance, rib-cracking clinch.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” John said, his voice cracking and wavering.

“Nor I,” Sherlock murmured.  “I don’t think I remember how to exist without you.”

They held each other for a few more long moments, then John drew back, forcing a smile.  “You’ll be brilliant in this part.  I’m so proud of you.”

“Right now, I could give two shits about the part.  I’d call them and tell them to forget the whole thing, but I’m under contract.”

“You’d regret it, anyway.  We have to get used to this.  It won’t be the last time.”

“I don’t wish to get used to it.  I don’t want to be separated from you often enough that it becomes routine.  I want it to be torturous every single time.”

John frowned.  “I think I follow that, but it still sounds fucked up.”

Sherlock grinned.  “All right, on that note, I ought to go.  Delay won’t make it easier, quite the opposite.”

“I had a present sent to your flat in Prague.  It should be waiting for you when you arrive,” John said.

“A present?  Should I refrain from opening it in mixed company?”

“It isn’t naughty.  Call it a good-luck present, or a late wedding gift.”

Sherlock nodded.  “I’ll look forward to it.”  He looked down into John’s eyes with a sigh.  “Goodbye, John,” he said, barely louder than a whisper.

John kissed him.  “Goodbye.  I love you.”

Sherlock pulled away and returned to the car.  He paused near the passenger door and gave John a little half-hearted wave.  John waved back.  Sherlock got in the car.  Sally started it up and backed down the drive, Sherlock watching John all the way.  Finally she turned onto the road and drove away, and they was gone.

John stood in the yard for a moment.  The silence descended around him like a void, a void shaped like a six-foot British actor who always filled more space than he physically occupied.  John felt smaller without him nearby.

He glanced at his watch.   _One minute down_ , he thought.   _Ninety thousand to go._

 

* * *

 

 

After an irritating flight, a rainy wait for their car and a long drive into the city, Sherlock finally arrived at the flat the studio had hired for him.  He and Sally exchanged a few grunts as he got out of the car, and it pulled away to take her to her own lodgings.  He hauled his overnight bag upstairs, wanting nothing more than a shower and a bed.

The flat was much posher than he’d anticipated, but he didn’t care much about the décor at the moment.  He made a beeline for the bedroom, where his attention was immediately fixed by the large box sitting on the bed.  He dropped his bags and picked up the note sitting on it.  “To S, Love J.”

Sherlock opened the box, curious about what John would consider an appropriate gift for this ill-defined occasion…but he shouldn’t have doubted, because it was, of course, perfect.

He pulled the heavy navy-blue coat out of the box.  It was long, well past the knee, and made of fine wool.  It felt luxurious and indulgent.  Grinning, he went to the mirror and put the coat on.  It looked…well, the coat didn’t just suit him.  It would have been more accurate to say that his whole life, his body had been missing this coat.  Leave it to John to find it for him.  “Oh, John,” he sighed, experimenting with the collar up, then down.  Something crackled in the pocket; he pulled out a note.

_If I can’t be there to keep you warm, perhaps this will.  All my love._

Sherlock pulled out his phone.  Now, to thank him properly.

 

* * *

 

 

John wasn’t surprised when his phone went off in the middle of the night; he’d rather been expecting it.  He’d told Sherlock to text him when he arrived.

The message was not a message, but a photo.  John opened it up – it showed Sherlock in front of a full-length mirror, wearing the Belstaff coat John had picked out for him months ago.  He was grinning ear to ear.  The collar of the coat was turned up, and it looked like it had been made with him in mind.  John grinned, pleased that Sherlock loved the gift.

A second photo arrived.  John swallowed hard – it showed the same view of Sherlock before the mirror, except now he wasn’t wearing a shirt under the coat.

A third photo.  Now his trousers had gone missing.

“Oh, Jesus,” John groaned, opening the fourth photo, in which Sherlock was posing in the coat…and nothing else.  He was standing sideways, hand on his hip, the coat gaping just enough to reveal a sliver of leg from knee to waist and a tantalizing glimpse of his cock.

A fifth photo.  Then a sixth.  Each one showed John Sherlock’s progression away from the mirror and onto the bed, still wearing the coat.  John turned onto his back and wrapped a hand around his own cock as the photos kept arriving every few seconds – how was he still taking photos, given that one of his hands was very obviously occupied with other matters?  John wanked furiously, the suspense of what each new photo would show spiking his arousal higher.  He came embarrassingly quickly, but then, Sherlock seemed to be much in the same boat, as the photos depicted.

The last one was a close-up of Sherlock’s lips, puckered in a kiss.  Then an ordinary text arrived.

_Thanks for the coat.  Now we can both enjoy a little memory show every time I wear it._

John laughed.  “Oh, you prick.”  He tossed the phone aside, feeling a little less bereft than he had been.

Perhaps he’d survive this, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite done yet! There will be an epilogue posted next week.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my betas roane72 and mazarin221b and my Forever Beta tzikeh for all their help and support.
> 
> This does not conclude the adventures of Actor John and Actor Sherlock. I have further plans for them! Subscribe to me here for updates, and follow me on Tumblr at madlori - I often post links and info there as well.

_two months later…._

 

Irene was looking at him through narrowed eyes.  “You want to do what, now?”

“Meet him at the airport.”  John sat with arms crossed, trying to convey his resolve with sufficient jutting of chin.

“You know that’s insane, right?”

“I don’t see why.  People meet their loved ones at airports, don’t they?”

“Not when they’re the most wanted paparazzi targets in the world.”

“I don’t care who sees.  I don’t care if our photo is splashed across every tabloid in the country.”

“Don’t you think Sherlock will care?”

“No.  He worries about crazy people stalking us into our private lives.  He doesn’t care if our photo is taken in public.”

Irene sighed.  “John, you can’t be all over the Internet with your tongue down his throat.”

“I can restrain myself and save the heavy kissing for private, Irene.  I’m not a child.”

“No, you’re a man who’s been separated from his husband for two months and I don’t think you can be held responsible for your actions when you see him again.”  She sighed.  “I can see that you’re not terribly interested in arguing about this.”

“I just…I want to see his face when he sees me standing there.  And it might be good press, anyway.  Everyone loves an airport reunion.  Don’t force me to cite Richard Curtis films in support of my case.”

Irene laughed.  “All right, you mean to do it, so do it.  But Harry and Sally are going with you.”

Irene’s concerns were not lost on John, so he put on standard movie-star camouflage:  jeans and a t-shirt, a worn leather jacket, a ball cap and sunglasses.  Nobody ever recognized him dressed like this, his chin just wasn’t distinctive enough.  Unfortunately, the moment Sherlock appeared, all that would change.  Sherlock was distinctive enough that he could wear a hooded monk’s robe and still be recognized, and the pair of them could not fail to be.  John lurked in the waiting area outside security, trying to keep away from large clots of people.

John looked at his watch for the tenth time in the last five minutes; Sherlock’s flight had landed ten minutes ago.  Sherlock was _here_.  He was finally standing on the same continent as John was, for the first time in two months.

The time had not flown, as various well-meaning friends had assured him that it would.  It had been long, and lonely, and John wasn’t above admitting that there had been tears on more than one occasion.  Due to the time difference and both of their schedules, the oft-promised Skype sessions had only happened a handful of times.  Beyond that it had been texts, and emails, and phone calls when they could be arranged.  Most of those phone calls had come upon the heels of John’s appearance at some public event or another, prompting Sherlock to ring him and demand what he’d been thinking to have worn _that._

Set photos from Sherlock’s shoot had only added to the torture.  A number of photographs of Sherlock in dashing Edwardian costume had surfaced, and he’d attended a couple of European press events looking devastating, as usual.  John had felt like a lovesick teenager, mooning over photos of his celebrity crush…only most lovesick teenagers didn’t later receive private versions of those red-carpet photos showing their celebrity crush in the process of removing his designer finery.

His own days had been filled with pre-production meetings for the Coen project, then read-throughs, rehearsals and principal photography, which had begun two weeks before.  To fill his hours further, he’d accepted every invitation anyone could toss at him.  Premieres, fundraisers, speaking engagements, panel discussions, film school workshops…the town had to be getting sick of him by now, he’d been putting himself out there so much.

People were now streaming through the security gates, their carry-ons trailing at their heels  They had the look of travelers from overseas -- tired, drawn, rumpled, most of them toting neck pillows or blankets.  John stood on tiptoe, looking for Sherlock’s curly hair bobbing above most of the others.  Harry was lurking near his elbow, ready to fend off any press; Sally was waiting outside with the car.

“John,” Harry said, quietly.  He followed her eyes…and there he was, striding toward the security gates.

He was wearing the coat.  It billowed out around him like a cape.  The sight of him, in person and not through a laptop screen -- well, John didn’t know what he was feeling, exactly.  His whole body felt numb, but tingly, jittery, cut calm.  He felt like his nerves were fighting amongst themselves.

He took a step forward.  Sherlock was staring down at his phone.   _Oh, God, is he calling…_  Sure enough, John’s phone rang.  Grinning, he answered it, taking off his sunglasses.  “Hey, stranger.”  He saw Sherlock’s face flush a bit upon hearing John’s voice.

“I’ve just landed.”

“I know.  Nice coat.”

Sherlock stopped short, looking around with wide eyes, the airport crowds flowing around him like a stream around a rock.  When he spotted John, his face creased into a delighted grin.  “Yes, it is,” Sherlock said into the phone, holding John’s eyes.  “It was a gift from my husband, who is even more gorgeous than last I saw him.”

John felt moisture spring to his eyes.  Sherlock strode toward him, shaking his head in amazement.  John put his phone away and trotted forward to meet him, his heart pounding as they closed the distance.  John threw himself the final few inches as Sherlock scooped him into an embrace; he wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s neck, burying his face in the crook of his shoulder and taking a deep breath of him.  “Sherlock,” he whispered, grabbing big handfuls of Sherlock’s coat, rocking back and forth and trying to breathe, overwhelmed by the feeling of Sherlock in his arms again after so long.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to meet me?”

“Wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It’s a surprise.”  Sherlock drew back, slid one hand around the back of John’s neck and kissed him.  John was peripherally aware that people were now noticing them.  He could see phones being raised and people whispering.  Much as he’d have liked to kiss back hard, to plunge into Sherlock’s mouth and taste him, he held himself back.  After a firm but close-mouthed kiss, John pulled Sherlock back into a tight clinch.

“God, I can’t believe you’re finally home.  It’s been…”

“Awful.  Horrendous,” Sherlock whispered.  “I feel like I haven’t drawn a proper breath since I left you.”

John sagged against him.  He hadn’t really realized how much tension he’d been carrying for two months, how much low-level stress he’d been under just being away from Sherlock.  Without it, he felt light as a feather.  “I missed you so much,” he said into Sherlock’s ear.

“You, too.  But can we please go home now?”

“God, yes.”

They separated, but couldn’t quite stop touching each other.  They were definitely attracting a lot of attention now.  People were staring, taking photos and videos, calling friends.  John put it out of his mind.  He’d chosen this, it had been worth it, and now all he cared about was that Sherlock was home and tomorrow morning he’d be there when he woke up, and for all the mornings to come.  He couldn’t stop grinning, he was bubbling with joy and it felt too big for his skin to contain it.  On impulse he seized Sherlock and hugged him again.  Sherlock chuckled and hugged him back, pressing a kiss to John’s temple.

They parted and linked hands; Sherlock picked up his discarded carry-on while Harry got on her phone to summon Sally.  Sherlock pulled John close and kissed his lips.  “You mad wanker,” he murmured.  As they headed for the passenger pick-up, someone in the crowd started clapping.  John looked around, bemused, as the onlookers gave them a spontaneous round of applause.  He lifted a hand in a little wave as they left, earning a cheer in return and some returned waves.

“Well, that’ll be all over the Internet in a matter of minutes,” Sherlock muttered.

“I don’t have a problem being seen hugging my husband.”

Sally pulled up just as they reached the kerb.  Sherlock opened the door for John, then followed him into the backseat.  No sooner had the door shut than Sherlock yanked John half across his lap and kissed him hard, his hands all over John’s back and arse.  John gave back as good as he got, grabbing Sherlock’s face and twining his fingers in that glorious hair, pressing him back against the seat.  “It’d be rude to have a shag in the back seat, wouldn’t it,” he said.

“Yes, it bloody would,” Sally said, glancing at them in the rearview mirror.

“Soon,” Sherlock said.  “And then I’m not letting you out of the bedroom for at least a day.”

John slid a hand inside Sherlock’s coat to his chest.  “It’s not going to get easier, you know.”

“I know.  And this won’t be our last separation.  I do hope we never have to do two months again.”

“We have some things to talk about there.  But let’s just relax for now.  I’ve got the weekend off.”

“I don’t have to be at the studio until next week.”

“Then let’s go home and stay there.”

Sherlock nodded, looking into John’s eyes.  “I love you, John.”

John sighed.  Sherlock had quite pointedly not said that for their entire separation.  John hadn’t remarked on it because he suspected he knew the reason, but hearing it now made up for it.  “I love you, too.”

“While I was away, it was too…I just…”

“I understand.”

John’s phone rang.  He pulled it out and rolled his eyes as he answered, putting it on speaker.  “You couldn’t wait until we at least got home, Irene?”

“Thought you’d like to see the first of what is sure to be many candid photos of you at the airport that’s turned up.  I just sent you the link.  And with that, I’ll leave you alone for the weekend.  Welcome home, Sherlock.”  She hung up.

John opened his email and clicked the link.  It went to a tweeted photo that had been taken no more than five minutes ago.  It showed them standing in the airport, in a close embrace, looking at each other with wide, happy smiles.  The tweeter had captioned it “Reunited.”

Sherlock was silent.  He was looking at the photo, rather intently.  John watched his face.  “Are you…upset?”

Sherlock’s jaw worked.  “I…no.  Look at my face, there.”

“I see it.”

“That surprises me.”

“What does?  Looks like you to me.”

“That expression.  That is how I feel when I look at you.  I just didn’t realize how much it showed on the outside.”

John smiled.  “Maybe you’re not as good an actor as you think you are.”

Sherlock made a face.  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Laughing, John settled back against Sherlock’s side, twining their fingers together.  “Welcome home, Sherlock.”

 

* * *

END

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Lifetime Achievement](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520023) by [aranel_parmadil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranel_parmadil/pseuds/aranel_parmadil), [consulting_smartass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)




End file.
